One July afternoon in 2024, Ryan Williams set out to prove himself wrong. Two months had passed since he’d hit upon a startling discovery about the relationship between time and memory in computing.

The original version of this story appeared in Quanta Magazine. One July afternoon in 2024, Ryan Williams set out to prove himself wrong. Two months had passed since he’d hit upon a startling ...

The original version of this story appeared in Quanta Magazine. In 1950 the Italian physicist Enrico Fermi was discussing the possibility of intelligent alien life with his colleagues. If alien ...