Computer science

Researchers are getting close to building a quantum computer that can perform tasks a classical computer can’t. Here’s what the milestone will mean.

Consciousness is a famously hard problem, so Hod Lipson is starting from the basics: with self-aware robots that can help us understand how we think.

To researchers’ surprise, deep learning vision algorithms often fail at classifying images because they mostly take cues from textures, not shapes.

Pure, verifiable randomness is hard to come by. Two proposals show how to make quantum computers into randomness factories.

Neven’s law states that quantum computers are improving at a “doubly exponential” rate. If it holds, quantum supremacy is around the corner.

The universe of problems that a computer can check has grown. The researchers’ secret ingredient? Quantum entanglement.

Two women programmers played a pivotal role in the birth of chaos theory. Their previously untold story illustrates the changing status of computation in science.

Quantum computers can’t selectively forget information. A new algorithm for multiplication shows a way around that problem.

Researchers have just released hacker-proof cryptographic code — programs with the same level of invincibility as a mathematical proof.