Max G. Levy – Quanta Magazine https://www.quantamagazine.org Illuminating science Fri, 21 Feb 2025 21:18:44 -0500 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.6.2 What Is Distributed Computing? https://www.quantamagazine.org/what-is-distributed-computing-20241125/ https://www.quantamagazine.org/what-is-distributed-computing-20241125/#respond Mon, 25 Nov 2024 14:49:44 +0000 https://www.quantamagazine.org/?p=144406 The post What Is Distributed Computing? first appeared on Quanta Magazine

]]> No device is an island: Your daily computational needs depend on more than just the microprocessors inside your computer or phone. Our modern world relies on “distributed computing,” which shares the computational load among multiple different machines. The technique passes data back and forth in an elaborate choreography of digital bits — a dance that has shaped the internet’s past…

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]]> https://www.quantamagazine.org/what-is-distributed-computing-20241125/feed/ 0 The Hidden World of Electrostatic Ecology https://www.quantamagazine.org/the-hidden-world-of-electrostatic-ecology-20240930/ https://www.quantamagazine.org/the-hidden-world-of-electrostatic-ecology-20240930/#respond Mon, 30 Sep 2024 14:30:49 +0000 https://www.quantamagazine.org/?p=141862 The post The Hidden World of Electrostatic Ecology first appeared on Quanta Magazine

]]> Imagine, for a moment, that you’re a honeybee. In many ways, your world is small. Your four delicate wings, each less than a centimeter long, transport your half-gram body through looming landscapes full of giant animals and plants. In other ways, your world is expansive, even grand. Your five eyes see colors and patterns that humans can’t, and your multisensory antennae detect odors from distant…

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]]> https://www.quantamagazine.org/the-hidden-world-of-electrostatic-ecology-20240930/feed/ 0 What Is Analog Computing? https://www.quantamagazine.org/what-is-analog-computing-20240802/ https://www.quantamagazine.org/what-is-analog-computing-20240802/#respond Fri, 02 Aug 2024 14:53:14 +0000 https://www.quantamagazine.org/?p=139518 The post What Is Analog Computing? first appeared on Quanta Magazine

]]> Computing today is almost entirely digital. The vast informational catacombs of the internet, the algorithms that power AI, the screen you’re reading this on — all are powered by electronic circuits manipulating binary digits — 0 and 1, off and on. We live, it has been said, in the digital age. But it’s not obvious why a system that operates using discrete chunks of information would be good at…

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]]> https://www.quantamagazine.org/what-is-analog-computing-20240802/feed/ 0 With ‘Digital Twins,’ The Doctor Will See You Now https://www.quantamagazine.org/with-digital-twins-the-doctor-will-see-you-now-20240726/ https://www.quantamagazine.org/with-digital-twins-the-doctor-will-see-you-now-20240726/#respond Fri, 26 Jul 2024 14:02:12 +0000 https://www.quantamagazine.org/?p=139343 The post With ‘Digital Twins,’ The Doctor Will See You Now first appeared on Quanta Magazine

]]> Amanda Randles wants to copy your body. If the computer scientist had her way, she’d have enough data — and processing power — to effectively clone you on her computer, run the clock forward, and see what your coronary arteries or red blood cells might do in a week. Fully personalized medical simulations, or “digital twins,” are still beyond our abilities, but Randles has pioneered computer models…

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]]> https://www.quantamagazine.org/with-digital-twins-the-doctor-will-see-you-now-20240726/feed/ 0 The Hidden Connection That Changed Number Theory https://www.quantamagazine.org/the-hidden-connection-that-changed-number-theory-20231101/ https://www.quantamagazine.org/the-hidden-connection-that-changed-number-theory-20231101/#respond Wed, 01 Nov 2023 14:37:03 +0000 https://www.quantamagazine.org/?p=131838 The post The Hidden Connection That Changed Number Theory first appeared on Quanta Magazine

]]> There are three kinds of prime numbers. The first is a solitary outlier: 2, the only even prime. After that, half the primes leave a remainder of 1 when divided by 4. The other half leave a remainder of 3. (5 and 13 fall in the first camp, 7 and 11 in the second.) There is no obvious reason that remainder-1 primes and remainder-3 primes should behave in fundamentally different ways. But they do.

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