Author: Andrew Lowry
Andrew Lowry
Andrew Lowry, a corporate professional and Senior Editor at mahdi.cheraghchi.info, is engrossed in mathematics every minute of his free time. His interests are deeply rooted in theoretical computer science, coding theory, information theory, and cryptography; he approaches these subjects as someone who genuinely cannot stop thinking about them rather than as a casual observer. He is most likely reading a proof when he is not in a meeting.
Nearly every university library at midnight will have at least one graduate student bent over a laptop with a partially completed paragraph on the screen and a chatbot window open in the next tab. It is rarely discussed aloud. However, it is present in almost every field, from literary theory to molecular biology, humming softly in the background. The topic of whether scientists are utilizing AI to assist with their paper writing is no longer relevant. What is now considered to be theirs is the question. Topic Profile: AI in Scientific ResearchDetailsFieldScientific publishing, computational research, academic ethicsFirst high-profile incidentA 2023…
Some political mischief doesn’t need a bag of cash or a smoke-filled chamber. All you need is a map and a little perseverance. One of the oldest games in democratic politics is the manipulation of election district borders, which Americans have referred to as gerrymandering for more than 200 years. What happens when mathematicians begin to examine the subject in greater detail is more recent and far more disturbing. What they discover is not comforting. Topic Overview: The Traveling Voter Problem & Electoral DistrictingCore ConceptThe Traveling Voter Problem — designing voting districts where every voter goes to their nearest ballot…
Hard drives are silently building up somewhere in an unremarkable server farm, perhaps in Virginia or a Chinese state that neither nation will openly admit. Anyone who touches the data that is currently arriving there will find it useless. Traffic that has been encrypted includes bank transfers, intercepted emails, and possibly orders from a general. It was all jumbled and unintelligible. Nevertheless, a significant amount of money is being spent to retain it. It’s worth pausing to consider that detail. Topic Overview: The Coming Crisis in CryptographyCore SubjectPost-Quantum Cryptography & the threat of quantum computing to RSA/ECC encryptionKey Algorithm at…
In the halls of some Silicon Valley campuses, there’s a particular type of individual who seems a little out of place. They might be lugging a battered paperback on combinatorics, speaking in terms of probability during lunch, or hardly paying attention to a Slack notification. These were the candidates that IT recruiters courteously ignored in favor of engineers who could produce products quickly a few years ago. They are now receiving the rival proposals. CategoryDetailsField NameTheoretical Computer Science (TCS)Core BranchesAlgorithms & Computational Complexity TheoryPrimary DisciplinesMathematics, Computer Science, LogicMajor Application AreasCryptography, Machine Learning, Quantum Computing, Distributed SystemsIndustry ImpactGoogle PageRank, 5G Polar…
There is a chamber somewhere, maybe underground or in a government building, where the encryption used to secure communications has nothing to do with how quickly modern computers can crack it. There’s no gambling on mathematical complexity among those in that room. They are dealing with an older, unfamiliar, and far more dependable class of security whose guarantees remain unwavering in the face of computational strain. Information-theoretic security is the term used to describe it. The rest of the world is still learning the true implications of it. Full Concept NameInformation-Theoretic Security (also: Unconditional Security)Origin / Introduced ByClaude Shannon, American…
The National Graphene Institute in Manchester feels like a statement when you walk in on a gloomy Tuesday morning. It is surrounded by angular concrete and glass, and it sits next to the historic red-brick campus like something from a different era. It is, in a sense. By now, the globe should have been altered by the science being conducted within. It hasn’t. Not quite yet. However, in a Cambridgeshire community that most people couldn’t locate on a map, something has quietly changed recently. CategoryDetailsMaterial NameGrapheneDiscovered2004DiscoverersAndre Geim & Konstantin Novoselov — Manchester UniversityNobel PrizePhysics, 2010StructureSingle-layer carbon atoms in hexagonal latticeKey…