Brain-inspired computers operating at the speed of light
A car, a home, and a wristwatch, all of them seem to be “smart” today. This intelligence runs on computing, which lately made the headlines for being scarce to obtain.
Why you may need to reconsider your route selection criterium
You have a job interview in 20 minutes and you are in a hurry to arrive at your application in time. To make matters even more stressful, there are many routes to your destination, but you have no idea which one to select. Luckily, you have access to a navigation system that can help you in your route selection process.
How Aho and Ullman slayed the Dragon
Alfred Aho and Jeffrey Ullman received the 2020 A.M Turing Award for their contributions to computer science. Let’s explore how their contributions have shaped the principles, techniques and tools for writing compilers.
Enigma: a complexity titan
In times of war, secure communication can be the difference between life and death, or even winning or losing a war. The first to patent a rotor machine in Europe was Arthur Scherbius in 1918. Scherbius’ version of the rotor machine became a commercial success, unlike the other patented machines. Scherbius named his machine Enigma.
A big breakthrough in the Euclidean Travelling Salesman Problem
Recently there has been a breakthrough in the field of algorithms for geometric network problems, concerning the complexity of the Euclidean Travelling Salesman Problem.
How does wireless communication work?
We might not be fully aware of it, but we all use wireless communication everyday in many familiar situations, such as when we connect our laptop to the local Wi-Fi network, when we use navigation apps to orientate ourselves while driving, or when we send a message to a friend using our smartphones. It has become so natural for the world we live in, that we often take it for granted and have no idea of how it works.
No winner without a second place
When you browse the internet a lot of websites show you banners with advertisements. And if you reload the page some new flashy advertisement pops up in the same place. Did you know that while your web page is loading an auction takes place?
Stopping network bottlenecks before they stop you
Detection of bottlenecks is a topic that mathematicians have been working on for decades and which they continue to work on.
How the schedule in the TATA Steel Chess Championship forced Carlsen to help Caruana win
Every January, the best chess players in the world compete in the TATA Steel Chess Championship, organized in Wijk aan Zee (The Netherlands). Among this year’s fourteen participants were Magnus Carlsen, world no. 1, coming into the tournament with an unbeaten streak of 104 matches, and Fabiano Caruana, the world no. 2.
Contest: How fast can you travel around the Netherlands?
. Suppose you are coming to the Netherlands for the first time, you want to enjoy your time in the country in the best possible way and probably visit and see as much as possible. So you rend a car and you decide to travel around. But now the challenge begins, planning such a trip!