2023’s Biggest Breakthroughs in Computer Science

2023’s Biggest Breakthroughs in Computer Science

In 2023, computer scientists made progress on a new vector-driven approach to AI, fundamentally improved Shor’s algorithm for factoring large numbers, and examined the surprising and powerful behaviors that can emerge from large language models.


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Space-Time: The Biggest Problem in Physics

September 25, 2024

What is the deepest level of reality? In this Quanta explainer, Vijay Balasubramanian, a physicist at the University of Pennsylvania, takes us on a journey through space-time to investigate what it’s made of, why it’s failing us, and where physics can go next.

Searching for Dark Matter with a Tabletop ‘Quantum Compass’

May 31, 2024

The physicist Alex Sushkov has developed one of the most targeted magnetic resonance experiments to date with the aim of detecting a hypothetical dark matter particle called the axion.

Can Large Language Models Understand ‘Meaning’?

April 29, 2024

Brown University computer scientist Ellie Pavlick is translating philosophical concepts such as “understanding” and “meaning” into concrete ideas that are testable on LLMs.

Predicting Eclipses: The Three Body Problem

April 5, 2024

Solar eclipse prediction has driven innovation across the history of science and mathematics, from the Saros cycle to Greek geometry to Newton’s calculus to the three-body problem.

Understanding Cryptography With These Five Worlds

March 27, 2024

Russell Impagliazzo describes the five possible cryptographic worlds we might inhabit.

Why Is This Basic Computer Science Problem So Hard?

March 8, 2024

Computer scientists have long used vector addition systems to model how certain programs work, but they didn’t have a full understanding of how complicated they could be. Recent work has finally pinned it down, showing that these problems are far more complicated than they seem.

How a New X-Ray Technique Sees Black Holes

February 12, 2024

Astrophysicist Erin Kara explores black holes by carefully tracking the gas and plasma swirling near their event horizons.

Decoding Math’s Most Famous Fractal

January 27, 2024

Mathematicians working in the field of complex dynamical systems are patiently unraveling the Mandelbrot set’s mysteries and may be on the verge of solving a fundamental conjecture that would allow them to describe the set completely.

The Math Hiding in Plain Sight

January 12, 2024

Sarah Hart, the professor of geometry at Gresham College, sees symmetry everywhere.