information theory – Quanta Magazine

Can Information Escape a Black Hole?

Janna Levin — Thu, 11 Apr 2024 13:09:00 +0000

Nothing escapes a black hole … or does it? In the 1970s, the physicist Stephen Hawking described a subtle process by which black holes can “evaporate,” with some particles evading gravitational oblivion. That phenomenon, now dubbed Hawking radiation, seems at odds with general relativity, and it raises an even weirder question: If particles can escape, do they preserve any information about the...

Source

‘Magical’ Error Correction Scheme Proved Inherently Inefficient

Ben Brubaker — Tue, 09 Jan 2024 16:00:14 +0000

If you’ve ever sent a text message, played a CD, or stored a file in the cloud, you’ve benefited from error correction. This revolutionary idea dates back to the 1940s, when researchers first realized that it’s possible to rewrite any message in a form that allows later corruption to be easily reversed. Over the years, researchers have developed many ingenious schemes...

Source

In New Paradox, Black Holes Appear to Evade Heat Death

George Musser — Tue, 06 Jun 2023 13:56:42 +0000

Heat death held a morbid fascination for Victorian-era physicists. It was an early example of how everyday physics connects to the grandest themes in cosmology. Drop ice cubes into a glass of water, and you create a situation that is out of equilibrium. The ice melts, the liquid chills, and the system reaches a common temperature. Although motion does not cease — water molecules continue to...

Source

Data Compression Drives the Internet. Here’s How It Works.

Elliot Lichtman — Wed, 31 May 2023 14:33:28 +0000

With more than 9 billion gigabytes of information traveling the internet every day, researchers are constantly looking for new ways to compress data into smaller packages. Cutting-edge techniques focus on lossy approaches, which achieve compression by intentionally “losing” information from a transmission. Google, for instance, recently unveiled a lossy strategy where the sending computer drops...

Source

Secret Messages Can Hide in AI-Generated Media

Stephen Ornes — Thu, 18 May 2023 14:00:05 +0000

On June 27, 2010, the FBI arrested 10 Russian spies who lived and worked as American professionals near New York City. The case, which unraveled an intricate system of false identities and clandestine meetings, exposed one of the largest spy networks in the U.S. since the Cold War ended and inspired the show The Americans. It also brought attention to steganography, a way of disguising a secret...

Source