Computers are particularly "noisy" because they rely on rapidly changing currents to act as clock signals that coordinate their calculations. This is an inevitable by-product of using electricity to do useful things, and it is analogous to the clanking and clattering sounds that mechanical devices make as they work. That's because the rapidly changing electric currents running through these devices naturally radiate electromagnetic waves. Virtually every piece of electrically powered equipment acts as a radio transmitter, whether it is supposed to or not. This sounds like a case of electromagnetic interference (or EMI), which is what happens when radio waves emitted by one device cause undesirable behavior in another. David Grier, chair of the physics department at New York University, dials up an answer to this mystery.
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