Explainers

One student’s desire to get out of a final exam led to the ubiquitous algorithm that shrinks data without sacrificing information.

When he invented Turing machines in 1936, Alan Turing also invented modern computing.

Unpredictability can help computer scientists solve otherwise intractable problems.

The four-color problem is simple to explain, but its complex proof continues to be both celebrated and despised.

The American researcher was recognized for his central role in inventing, standardizing and commercializing the ubiquitous networking technology.

Several real-life pathogens can change a host’s behavior against their will. Here’s what we know about these zombie-like infections.

“Liquid” neural nets, based on a worm’s nervous system, can transform their underlying algorithms on the fly, giving them unprecedented speed and adaptability.

Richard Feynman’s path integral is both a powerful prediction machine and a philosophy about how the world is. But physicists are still struggling to figure out how to use it, and what it means.

Diffusion models generate incredible images by learning to reverse the process that, among other things, causes ink to spread through water.