Informatik
17 cards from across every topic, each citing a source. Tap one to open it in the feed.
- A '3-nanometre chip' has no part that measures 3 nanometres.
The number once meant the length of the transistor gate. Today it is a marketing name for a new generation with more …
- Encryption explained with an open padlock.
Imagine handing out open padlocks that only your key can open. Anyone can lock a box with one, but only you can unlock …
- Everything on your phone is made of yes and no.
A bit is the smallest unit of information: 0 or 1. Eight bits make a byte, which can hold 256 different values, enough …
- Good websites never actually know your password.
Reputable services don't store your password but its hash: a fixed string that can't be reversed into the password. At …
- How Bluetooth switches channels 1,600 times a second.
Bluetooth uses the 2.4 GHz band, the same as Wi-Fi and microwave ovens. To avoid drowning, it splits the band into 79 …
- How a QR code still works with a hole in the middle.
A QR code stores not just your data but Reed-Solomon check data too – like the check digits of an IBAN, only far more …
- How a ZIP file shrinks without losing a single bit.
Two tricks. First, the algorithm replaces repetitions with a back-reference: 'same as 200 characters ago, 15 characters …
- How a computer rolls dice when all it can do is calculate.
A computer knows no chance. It starts with a number, the seed, and runs it through a formula; each result becomes the …
- How a neural network learns from its mistakes.
A neural network is a mesh of computing nodes linked by millions to billions of numbers, the weights. To learn, it …
- How to count to 31 on one hand.
In binary, each digit is worth twice the one before it: 1, 2, 4, 8, 16. The number 1011 means 8 + 0 + 2 + 1 = 11. Your …
- How your browser finds wikipedia.org.
Computers reach each other by numbers, the IP addresses. When you type a name, your device asks a DNS server, which …
- On 19 January 2038 at 03:14:07, some computers will jump to 1901.
Many systems count time as seconds since 1 January 1970 and store the number in a signed 32-bit integer. The largest …
- The internet ran out of addresses in 2011.
An IPv4 address has 32 bits, so there are about 4.3 billion of them, for over 8 billion people and even more devices. …
- The most famous computer bug was an actual moth.
On September 9, 1947, technicians on the Harvard Mark II found a moth in a relay, taped it into the logbook and wrote …
- The question "Can machines think?" is 76 years old.
In 1950 Alan Turing proposed a game in his paper "Computing Machinery and Intelligence": a person chats in writing with …
- Why doubling is so hard to picture.
In 1965 Gordon Moore noticed that the number of transistors on a chip doubled at a regular pace, roughly every two …
- Your video arrives in thousands of separate pieces.
The internet doesn't send files whole; it chops them into packets, usually up to 1,500 bytes each. Every packet carries …