Each week Quanta Magazine explains one of the most important ideas driving modern research. This week, computer science staff writer Ben Brubaker unpacks what computer science is really about and discusses some highlights from his reporting over the past year. When I tell people that I write about computer science, they’re often not sure what I mean. Do I cover software? Cybersecurity? The latest Silicon Valley gadgets? Actually, I rarely touch on any of these. A pithy quote attributed to the pi...