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 ...

Theoretical computer scientists are always probing the relationship of space (memory) and time. For 50 years, experts knew that a calculation of X steps required X/log X memory slots, but a new study ...

Imagine a swarm of fireflies, flickering lights on and off in the nighttime space. How does the human brain process and integrate information about duration and spatial position enabling this vision?

Einstein's theory of general relativity views time similarly to width, height, and length. As such, both time and space can be curved by gravity. This effectively means that time is slower the closer ...

Intuitively, we know what time is, but try to explain it, and we end up tying our minds in knots. When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Here’s how it works.

If you wave your hand in front of your face, you won’t notice anything particularly interesting. Perhaps a gentle waft of air against your cheek – that’s about it. No epiphany. No major sign that ...