Content about “
computer science

Article

Robots to play games with

Chess computers were one of the first step towards developing a form of AI. Here's a brief history.
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A conversation with Stephen Cook

We talk to pioneering mathematician Stephen Cook, who came up with the concept of NP-complete problems, about his work, computer science, and artificial intelligence.
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What's your problem?

There are problems that are easy to solve in theory, but impossible to solve in practice. Intrigued? Then join us on a journey through the world of complexity, all the way to the famous P versus NP conjecture.

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clock

Clocks to the rescue!

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