List by Author: Rachel Thomas

Abel Prize 2018: the power of asking good questions

Robert Langlands wins for his "visionary program".

Fighting future pandemics

Take part in an exciting new project and help fight future pandemics!

Loo-Q: Clearing aisles and relieving passengers

Here we present a worked example of a distributed system in action, to illustrate Leslie Lamport's rules of ordering history using logical clocks.

Clocks to the rescue!

Leslie Lamport explains how he used logical clocks to set history straight in distributed systems.

Violating causality

Leslie Lamport explains how an understanding of special relativity helped him realise how to order events in computer science, and enabled the development of distributed computing.

What happens inside your computer?

My view of the events taking place on my computer is very different to how a computer scientist, a engineer or a physicist would view what is happening inside the box. Leslie Lamport explains how the definition of an event distinguishes between these areas of research.

Distributed systems and ambiguous histories

Our digital lives rely on distributed computer systems, such as the network of banks that allow us to deposit cash in one place and withdraw it in another. But understanding the order of events in such systems is not always straightforward.

Fourier transforms of images

How to make images out of ripples of pixels...

The shape of things to come: part i

This year's Nobel Prize for Physics brings together the physics of materials with one of our favourite areas of maths – topology.

What is a block universe?

Has the future already already been written? Is time just an illusion? Take a step outside of spacetime with cosmologist Marina Cortês to discover the block universe.

Time in a block universe

Fundamental physics says time is symmetric - so why does time move forwards for us in a block universe?

Why not block time?

Is time real? Are we just puppets living out a future already written? Marina Cortês explains why she thinks time is fundamental and that we don't live in a block universe.