Matrix Math Just Got a Tiny Bit Quicker?

Ever feel like computers are just… slow? We’re constantly pushing them to do more, faster, from rendering the latest games to training those AIs that are writing (or at least inspiring) articles like this one. And at the heart of so many of these tasks lies matrix multiplication – a fundamental operation that’s been the…

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When Randomness Slows Down Time

The Unpredictable Dance of Random Walks Imagine a tiny particle, adrift in a chaotic landscape. Its movements aren’t governed by predictable laws, but rather by the whims of chance. This seemingly simple scenario, known as a random walk, underpins many complex processes in nature and technology, from the diffusion of molecules to the spread of…

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LHC Detects a Hint of Something Unexpectedly Broad

A Glimmer in the Data The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN, that colossal atom-smasher buried beneath the Franco-Swiss border, has once again yielded intriguing results. A recent analysis by the CMS Collaboration, reinterpreting data from a previous search, hints at something unexpected: a broad resonance, a phenomenon that shakes up our understanding of particle…

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Solving a 7-adic Puzzle: Unraveling the Secrets of Elliptic Curves

Unlocking the Mysteries of Elliptic Curves Elliptic curves, deceptively simple-looking equations that define beautiful, twisting shapes, are central to number theory. They possess a rich and complex structure, with connections to seemingly unrelated areas of mathematics. Understanding these curves better has profound implications, from cryptography to our understanding of the fundamental building blocks of numbers…

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AI City Builders: How Algorithms Are Learning to Design Our Future

Forget meticulously crafting virtual cities brick by brick. Researchers at Northwestern University and the Illinois Institute of Technology have developed a groundbreaking method that lets algorithms design entire metropolises, complete with realistic road networks and building distributions. Lead by Thomas Lechner, Ben Watson, and Uri Wilensky, the procedural city modeling project tackles a challenge that…

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A Sea of Light Rings Hidden in Spacetime

Space near the most extreme objects in the universe behaves like a carnival mirror: it twists light, stretches time, and turns simple paths into elaborate loops. Around massive, compact bodies, photons can get stuck in orbit, tracing circles that look almost musical in their precision. These light rings, or null circular geodesics, are more than…

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AI’s New Ears: Hearing Through Noise, Even With Broken Equipment

Imagine a world where even the most battered, low-resolution recording devices could capture crystal-clear audio, filtering out background noise and interference with stunning accuracy. This isn’t science fiction; it’s the promise of a new approach to signal processing developed by researchers at Rutgers University. Led by Morriel Kasher, Michael Tinston, and Predrag Spasojevic, their work…

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Can AI harvest randomness from ordinary RF noise today?

Entropy is the secret sauce of secure computing. It’s the unpredictable spice that makes cryptographic keys hard to guess and simulations believable. In the real world, though, harvesting high-quality randomness is surprisingly hard, especially on tiny devices that live on the edge of the network. The usual suspects—quantum devices, elaborate RF receivers, or lab-grade hardware—are…

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