To keep communications secure in a post-quantum world, cryptographers are digging down into the concept of cause and effect.

Quantum mechanics wreaks even more havoc with conventional ideas of causality than some have suspected – according to a team of researchers based in Australia, with collaborators in Scotland and ...

Quantum space and time Physicists have developed no-go theorems that limit quantum processes in space–time causality. (Courtesy: iStock/piranka) Physicists have developed a new theoretical framework ...

Quantum batteries could charge more efficiently by skirting conventional rules of causality. Yuanbo Chen at the University of Tokyo and his colleagues analysed whether a particularly counterintuitive ...

Alice and Bob, the stars of so many thought experiments, are cooking dinner when mishaps ensue. Alice accidentally drops a plate; the sound startles Bob, who burns himself on the stove and cries out.

BREAKFAST in my house is a causal affair. The kettle boils because I have switched it on. The toast acquires its golden crust because I put it in the toaster. The butter makes its way to the table ...