Inside arXiv—the Most Transformative Platform in All of Science

On the library’s side, some people thought Ginsparg was too hands-on. Others said he wasn’t patient enough. A “good lower-level manager,” according to someone long involved with arXiv, “but his sense of management didn’t scale.” For most of the 2000s, arXiv couldn’t hold on to more than a few developers.Continue Reading

RISC Architecture Really Did Change Everything

Yes. We’ve been here before. A second war of the architectures. In Hackers, a group of RISC- obsessed teens must stop a goateed villain from capsizing a fleet of oil tankers with a computer virus. Pictured here, from left: Lord Nikon, Dade, Kate, and Cereal Killer. Photograph: Everett Collection It’sContinue Reading

A ‘Teleportation’ Breakthrough for Quantum Computing Is Here

Quantum computing has enormous potential, but it faces a scalability problem. For such a machine to be useful in real terms, multiple quantum processors need to be assembled in a single location. This increases a processor’s power but also its size, making it less practical and more delicate. Scientists areContinue Reading