Imaginary numbers might seem like unicorns and goblins — interesting but irrelevant to reality. But for describing matter at its roots, imaginary numbers turn out to be essential. They seem to be ...

Sometimes you need random numbers — and properly random ones, at that. Hackaday Alum [Sean Boyce] whipped up a rig that serves up just that, tasty random bytes delivered fresh over MQTT. [Sean] tells ...

Researchers have developed a chip-based quantum random number generator that provides high-speed, high-quality operation on a miniaturized platform. This advance could help move quantum random number ...

Quantum computing is a revolutionary form of computing that uses the principles of quantum mechanics to perform calculations that would be infeasible or impossible for classical computers. Unlike ...

The proof, known to be so hard that a mathematician once offered 10 martinis to whoever could figure it out, connects quantum mechanics to infinitely intricate mathematical structures. Hofstadter was ...

Several years ago one of us, Toni, asked another of us, Marco, to come to his office at the Institute of Photonic Sciences, a large research center in Castelldefels near Barcelona. “There is a problem ...

Mathematicians were disturbed, centuries ago, to find that calculating the properties of certain curves demanded the seemingly impossible: numbers that, when multiplied by themselves, turn negative.

Researchers at Japan’s Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corporation (NTT) have built a quantum random number generator (QRNG) that delivers random bits periodically with high speed and is robust against ...