A hybrid computer uses rotating mechanical beams for memory and electrical contacts for logic, performing reprogrammable computation through physical motion in environments where conventional ...

One July afternoon in 2024, Ryan Williams set out to prove himself wrong. Two months had passed since he’d hit upon a startling discovery about the relationship between time and memory in computing.

The idea of a living organism replacing a silicon chip inevitably evokes science-fiction scenarios. However, a recent study ...

Adrian Ward had been driving confidently around Austin, Texas, for nine years — until last November, when he started getting lost. Ward’s phone had been acting up, and Apple Maps had stopped working.

“Imagine a computation that produces a new bit of information in every step, based on the bits that it has computed so far. Over t steps of time, it may generate up to t new bits of information in ...

The original version of this story appeared in Quanta Magazine. One July afternoon in 2024, Ryan Williams set out to prove himself wrong. Two months had passed since he’d hit upon a startling ...

The original version of this story appeared in Quanta Magazine. “Obviously” is a dangerous word, even in scenarios that seem simple. Suppose, for instance, you need to do an important computation. You ...

Your memory relies on reusing, overlapping and adapting rather than on a fixed number of storage spots. When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Here’s how it ...

Your web browser could be the culprit, especially if you've lost count of the number of windows and tabs you have open. Each ...