@AlSweigart ...or, when we talk about Dijkstra's algorithm, why not make it O(m log^(2/3) n)!? 😜
Breaking the Sorting Barrier for Directed Single-Source Shortest Paths:
https://arxiv.org/abs/2504.17033
To achieve this, the researchers _combine_ Dijkstra’s algorithm with Bellman-Ford algorithm - incredible stuff! 🤓

Breaking the Sorting Barrier for Directed Single-Source Shortest Paths
We give a deterministic $O(m\log^{2/3}n)$-time algorithm for single-source shortest paths (SSSP) on directed graphs with real non-negative edge weights in the comparison-addition model. This is the first result to break the $O(m+n\log n)$ time bound of Dijkstra's algorithm on sparse graphs, showing that Dijkstra's algorithm is not optimal for SSSP.

