Can neural networks learn languages that are impossible for humans? My latest story for QuantaMagazine@mstdn.social explores how making language models worse at learning might make them better tools for linguists: https://www.quantamagazine.org/can-ai-models-show-us-how-people-learn-impossible-languages-point-a-way-20250113/
13.1.2025 16:55Can neural networks learn languages that are impossible for humans? My latest story for QuantaMagazine@mstdn.social explores how making...My latest in @QuantaMagazine: why theoretical computer scientists like to pose questions to imaginary black boxes: https://www.quantamagazine.org/why-computer-scientists-consult-oracles-20250103/
3.1.2025 14:45My latest in @QuantaMagazine: why theoretical computer scientists like to pose questions to imaginary black boxes:...Today in Nature, the first experimental demonstration that scaling up a quantum error-correcting code makes it better. It's a critical step on the path to useful quantum computers. Read more in @QuantaMagazine: https://www.quantamagazine.org/quantum-computers-cross-critical-error-threshold-20241209/
9.12.2024 16:24Today in Nature, the first experimental demonstration that scaling up a quantum error-correcting code makes it better. It's a critical...My latest in @QuantaMagazine: the best known method for finding shortest paths through a network is even better than researchers thought. It’s a surprising new discovery about an algorithm that's nearly 70 years old: https://www.quantamagazine.org/computer-scientists-establish-the-best-way-to-traverse-a-graph-20241025/
25.10.2024 15:39My latest in @QuantaMagazine: the best known method for finding shortest paths through a network is even better than researchers thought....For @QuantaMagazine, I wrote about a new synthesis of the two most remarkable proof methods in computer science. The new technique keeps the details of a correct proof absolutely secret, yet instantly broadcasts any error in a flawed one: https://www.quantamagazine.org/computer-scientists-combine-two-beautiful-proof-methods-20241004/
4.10.2024 13:42For @QuantaMagazine, I wrote about a new synthesis of the two most remarkable proof methods in computer science. The new technique keeps the...In February, four computer scientists set out to develop an algorithm for simulating quantum systems. Along the way, they accidentally proved that entanglement in those systems vanishes completely above a certain temperature. My latest for @QuantaMagazine: https://www.quantamagazine.org/computer-scientists-prove-that-heat-destroys-quantum-entanglement-20240828/
28.8.2024 15:07In February, four computer scientists set out to develop an algorithm for simulating quantum systems. Along the way, they accidentally...Here's the story — I hope you have as much fun reading it as I did writing it!
5/5
3.7.2024 14:22Here's the story — I hope you have as much fun reading it as I did writing...Putting aside the science entirely, the history of the search and the new discovery is just an extraordinary story, full of details that would frankly seem too on-the-nose if this were fiction.
4/5
3.7.2024 14:22Putting aside the science entirely, the history of the search and the new discovery is just an extraordinary story, full of details that...How complicated, you ask? Well, for starters, as they run they make patterns that look like this. Can you predict whether these patterns are continue forever or eventually stop? That's what the busy beaver search is about.
3/5
3.7.2024 14:21How complicated, you ask? Well, for starters, as they run they make patterns that look like this. Can you predict whether these patterns are...The search for the 5th busy beaver — and its smaller cousins, identified in the 1960s and 1970s — is essentially a way of exploring the most ridiculously complicated things that simple programs can do. It has roots in a famously unsolvable problem in the foundations of CS.
2/5
3.7.2024 14:21The search for the 5th busy beaver — and its smaller cousins, identified in the 1960s and 1970s — is essentially a way of exploring the...My latest story in @QuantaMagazine was the most pure unadulterated fun I've had reporting in my time as a journalist to date.
After decades, an open online collaboration has definitively identified an unusually active computer program called the fifth busy beaver.
1/5
3.7.2024 14:20My latest story in @QuantaMagazine was the most pure unadulterated fun I've had reporting in my time as a journalist to date.After...How hard is it to distinguish two quantum states that look superficially similar? That seemingly innocuous question has led researchers to rethink the foundations of quantum cryptography. My latest in @QuantaMagazine: https://www.quantamagazine.org/cryptographers-discover-a-new-foundation-for-quantum-secrecy-20240603/
3.6.2024 21:43How hard is it to distinguish two quantum states that look superficially similar? That seemingly innocuous question has led researchers to...70 years ago, Soviet mathematicians asked whether there’s any way to solve certain problems faster than just checking all possible solutions. Now researchers have answered that question for a special class of algorithms. My latest in @QuantaMagazine: https://www.quantamagazine.org/cryptography-tricks-make-a-hard-problem-a-little-easier-20240418
18.4.2024 15:3570 years ago, Soviet mathematicians asked whether there’s any way to solve certain problems faster than just checking all possible...Russell Impagliazzo’s playful framing of the biggest problems in computational complexity theory has inspired a generation of researchers. For
@QuantaMagazine, I spoke to him about hypothetical worlds, randomness, improv comedy, and more: https://www.quantamagazine.org/the-researcher-who-explores-computation-by-conjuring-new-worlds-20240327/
How can we understand the intrinsic capabilities and limitations of the neural networks that power large language models? I wrote about efforts to answer these questions using the tools of computational complexity theory: https://www.quantamagazine.org/how-chain-of-thought-reasoning-helps-neural-networks-compute-20240321/
22.3.2024 01:33How can we understand the intrinsic capabilities and limitations of the neural networks that power large language models? I wrote about...My latest in @QuantaMagazine: two physicists have proved that a famous class of infinite non-repeating tiling patterns is mathematically equivalent to a form of quantum error correction. https://www.quantamagazine.org/never-repeating-tiles-can-safeguard-quantum-information-20240223
23.2.2024 15:30My latest in @QuantaMagazine: two physicists have proved that a famous class of infinite non-repeating tiling patterns is mathematically...There’s been a recent breakthrough in the study of locally correctable codes — error correction schemes that can fix any corrupted fragment of a message using barely any information. Read more in my latest story for @QuantaMagazine: https://www.quantamagazine.org/magical-error-correction-scheme-proved-inherently-inefficient-20240109
9.1.2024 17:01There’s been a recent breakthrough in the study of locally correctable codes — error correction schemes that can fix any corrupted...As a companion piece, I recommend this profile of Blum’s husband Manuel, himself a pioneering computer scientist: https://www.technologyreview.com/2023/10/24/1081478/manuel-blum-theoretical-computer-science-turing-award-academic-advisor/
3.1.2024 19:01As a companion piece, I recommend this profile of Blum’s husband Manuel, himself a pioneering computer scientist:...For @QuantaMagazine I interviewed Lenore Blum about her long and distinguished career in math and computer science, what she did to help women succeed in both fields, and how computer science can inform our understanding of consciousness.
https://www.quantamagazine.org/the-accidental-activist-who-changed-the-face-of-mathematics-20240103
3.1.2024 18:59For @QuantaMagazine I interviewed Lenore Blum about her long and distinguished career in math and computer science, what she did to help...Last summer, I wrote a massive story about famously hard computational problems. But some problems are far, far harder. Read more in my latest story for @QuantaMagazine
4.12.2023 16:53Last summer, I wrote a massive story about famously hard computational problems. But some problems are far, far harder. Read more in my...