A new algorithm solves a blind spot that has challenged computer scientists since 1996, improving distance estimates for nearby points in massive networks.

Navigation apps usually solve one route at a time, such as finding the fastest way from a hotel to an airport. Computer scientists face a far larger version of that challenge: calculating the shortest distance between every possible pair of locations in a network.

Known as the All-Pairs Shortest Paths (APSP) problem, this task applies to far more than road maps. A graph can represent computers connected by data links, stations joined by rail lines, proteins interacting inside a cell, or neurons communicating in the brain. The points are called vertices, and the connections between them are edges.