One of the pieces of equipment for the quantum random number generator in the NIST Boulder laboratories. Very little in this life is truly random. A coin flip is influenced by the flipper’s force, its ...

The 2023 Turing Award has been given to Avi Wigderson, a mathematician who discovered the strange connection between computation and randomness. Wigderson was announced the winner of the Association ...

A quantum random-number generator has been developed that uses classical cryptography to certify that its output was produced by a quantum process. A truly random number is generated by a process ...

Scientists at NIST and the University of Colorado Boulder have created CURBy, a cutting-edge quantum randomness beacon that draws on the intrinsic unpredictability of quantum entanglement to produce ...

Using a powerful machine made up of 56 trapped-ion quantum bits, or qubits, researchers have achieved something once thought impossible. They have proven, for the first time, that a quantum computer ...

Randomness is incredibly useful. People often draw straws, throw dice or flip coins to make fair choices. Random numbers can enable auditors to make completely unbiased selections. Randomness is also ...

Katie has a PhD in maths, specializing in the intersection of dynamical systems and number theory. She reports on topics from maths and history to society and animals. Katie has a PhD in maths, ...

A mathematician who developed formulas to make random processes more predictable and helped to solve an iconic model of complex phenomena has won the 2024 Abel Prize, one of the field’s most coveted ...