Tony Tyson’s cameras revealed the universe’s dark contents. Now, with the Rubin Observatory’s 3.2-billion-pixel camera, he’s ready to study dark matter and dark energy in unprecedented detail. The post The Biggest-Ever Digital Camera Is This Cosmologist’s Magnum Opus first appear … | Continue reading
Elfatih Eltahir explains why we need more local and social data, like disease spread and population growth, to better predict and address climate-related challenges. The post How Can Regional Models Advance Climate Science? first appeared on Quanta Magazine | Continue reading
An attack on a fundamental proof technique reveals a glaring security issue for blockchains and other digital encryption schemes. The post Computer Scientists Figure Out How To Prove Lies first appeared on Quanta Magazine | Continue reading
After just a few months of work, a complete newcomer to the world of sphere packing has solved one of its biggest open problems. The post New Sphere-Packing Record Stems From an Unexpected Source first appeared on Quanta Magazine | Continue reading
A better understanding of human smell is emerging as scientists interrogate its fundamental elements: the odor molecules that enter your nose and the individual neurons that translate them into perception in your brain. The post How Smell Guides Our Inner World first appeared on … | Continue reading
The precursors of heavy elements might arise in the plasma underbellies of swollen stars or in smoldering stellar corpses. They definitely exist in East Lansing, Michigan. The post Physicists Start To Pin Down How Stars Forge Heavy Atoms first appeared on Quanta Magazine | Continue reading
Image generators are designed to mimic their training data, so where does their apparent creativity come from? A recent study suggests that it’s an inevitable by-product of their architecture. The post Researchers Uncover Hidden Ingredients Behind AI Creativity first appeared on … | Continue reading
Scientists reconstructed 500 million years of evolutionary history to reveal which came first: colorful signals or the color vision needed to see them. The post When Did Nature Burst Into Vivid Color? first appeared on Quanta Magazine | Continue reading
Maria Chudnovsky reflects on her journey in graph theory, her groundbreaking solution to the long-standing perfect graph problem, and the unexpected ways this abstract field intersects with everyday life. The post How Does Graph Theory Shape Our World? first appeared on Quanta Ma … | Continue reading
A tetrahedron is the simplest Platonic solid. Mathematicians have now made one that’s stable only on one side, confirming a decades-old conjecture. The post A New Pyramid-Like Shape Always Lands the Same Side Up first appeared on Quanta Magazine | Continue reading
Every elementary particle falls into one of two categories. Collectivist bosons account for the forces that move us while individualist fermions keep our atoms from collapsing. The post Matter vs. Force: Why There Are Exactly Two Types of Particles first appeared on Quanta Magazi … | Continue reading
Two new notions of infinity challenge a long-standing plan to define the mathematical universe. The post Is Mathematics Mostly Chaos or Mostly Order? first appeared on Quanta Magazine | Continue reading
Martin Schrimpf is crafting bespoke AI models that can induce control over high-level brain activity. The post How AI Models Are Helping to Understand — and Control — the Brain first appeared on Quanta Magazine | Continue reading
By speedrunning ecosystems with microbes, researchers revealed intrinsic properties that may make a community susceptible to invasion. The post The Ecosystem Dynamics That Can Make or Break an Invasion first appeared on Quanta Magazine | Continue reading
A new argument explores how the growth of disorder could cause massive objects to move toward one another. Physicists are both interested and skeptical. The post Is Gravity Just Entropy Rising? Long-Shot Idea Gets Another Look. first appeared on Quanta Magazine | Continue reading
From brain folds to insect architecture, L. Mahadevan explains how complex biological forms and behaviors emerge through the interplay of physical forces, environment and embodiment. The post Does Form Really Shape Function? first appeared on Quanta Magazine | Continue reading
By mathematically proving how individual molecules create the complex motion of fluids, three mathematicians have illuminated why time can’t flow in reverse. The post Epic Effort to Ground Physics in Math Opens Up the Secrets of Time first appeared on Quanta Magazine | Continue reading
A surprising approach to quantum computing brings new possibilities to the field, but at a high energy cost. The post New Quantum Algorithm Factors Numbers With One Qubit first appeared on Quanta Magazine | Continue reading
Physicists recently mapped the hidden shape that underlies the quantum behaviors of a crystal, using a new method that’s expected to become ubiquitous. The post First Map Made of a Solid’s Secret Quantum Geometry first appeared on Quanta Magazine | Continue reading
Studies of neural metabolism reveal our brain’s effort to keep us alive and the evolutionary constraints that sculpted our most complex organ. The post How Much Energy Does It Take To Think? first appeared on Quanta Magazine | Continue reading
By extending the scope of the key insight behind Fermat’s Last Theorem, four mathematicians have made great strides toward building a “grand unified theory” of math. The post The Core of Fermat’s Last Theorem Just Got Superpowered first appeared on Quanta Magazine | Continue reading
Reversible programs run backward as easily as they run forward, saving energy in theory. After decades of research, they may soon power AI. The post How Can AI Researchers Save Energy? By Going Backward. first appeared on Quanta Magazine | Continue reading
Promise and controversy continues to surround string theory as a potential unified theory of everything. In the latest episode of The Joy of Why, Cumrun Vafa discusses his progress in trying to find good, testable models hidden among the ‘swampland’ of impossible universes. The p … | Continue reading
Manu Prakash works on the world’s most urgent problems and seemingly frivolous questions at the same time. They add up to a philosophy he calls “recreational biology.” The post How Paradoxical Questions and Simple Wonder Lead to Great Science first appeared on Quanta Magazine | Continue reading
Black hole and Big Bang singularities break our best theory of gravity. A trilogy of theorems hints that physicists will need to go to the ends of space and time to find a fix. The post Singularities in Space-Time Prove Hard to Kill first appeared on Quanta Magazine | Continue reading
A new proof illuminates the hidden patterns that emerge when addition becomes impossible. The post Graduate Student Solves Classic Problem About the Limits of Addition first appeared on Quanta Magazine | Continue reading
One computer scientist’s “stunning” proof is the first progress in 50 years on one of the most famous questions in computer science. The post For Algorithms, a Little Memory Outweighs a Lot of Time first appeared on Quanta Magazine | Continue reading
Slight changes in the number, shape, efficiency and interconnectedness of organelles in the cells of flight muscles provide extra energy for birds’ continent-spanning feats. The post ‘Turbocharged’ Mitochondria Power Birds’ Epic Migratory Journeys first appeared on Quanta Magazin … | Continue reading
Turbulence is a notoriously difficult phenomenon to study. Mathematicians are now starting to untangle it at its smallest scales. The post New ‘Superdiffusion’ Proof Probes the Mysterious Math of Turbulence first appeared on Quanta Magazine | Continue reading
Geometry may have its origins thousands of years ago in ancient land surveying, but it has also had a surprising impact on modern physics. In the latest episode of The Joy of Why, Yang-Hui He explores geometry’s evolution and its future potential through AI. The post How Did Geom … | Continue reading
From living matter to molecules to elementary particles, the world is made of “chiral” objects that differ from their reflected forms. The post How the Universe Differs From Its Mirror Image first appeared on Quanta Magazine | Continue reading
Exploring the distant universe, the insides of cells, the abstractions of math, the complexity of information itself and much more, The Quanta Podcast will be a tour of the frontier between the known and the unknown. The post Introducing The Quanta Podcast first appeared on Quant … | Continue reading
Researchers have devised a scheme for painting the edges of a graph that’s almost as speedy as possible. The post The Fastest Way Yet to Color Graphs first appeared on Quanta Magazine | Continue reading
The physicist Sidney Nagel delights in solving mysteries of the universe that are hiding in plain sight. The post Finding Beauty and Truth in Mundane Occurrences first appeared on Quanta Magazine | Continue reading
How do memories last a lifetime when the molecules that form them turn over within days, weeks or months? An interaction between two proteins points to a molecular basis for memory. The post The Molecular Bond That Helps Secure Your Memories first appeared on Quanta Magazine | Continue reading
A new proof represents the culmination of a 65-year-old story about anomalous shapes in special dimensions. The post Dimension 126 Contains Strangely Twisted Shapes, Mathematicians Prove first appeared on Quanta Magazine | Continue reading
AI may sound like a human, but that doesn’t mean that AI learns like a human. In this episode, Ellie Pavlick explains why understanding how LLMs can process language could unlock deeper insights into both AI and the human mind. The post Will AI Ever Understand Language Like Human … | Continue reading
An exploration of how artificial intelligence is changing what it means to do science and math, and what it means to be a scientist. The post Science, Promise and Peril in the Age of AI first appeared on Quanta Magazine | Continue reading
We asked some of the world’s foremost experts an impossible question. Amazingly, they answered. The post Where Do Scientists Think This Is All Going? first appeared on Quanta Magazine | Continue reading
Technology has forever served as science’s toolbox. But now that AI is being used to develop questions and methods as well, some scientists wonder what their role is going to become. The post What Happens When AI Starts To Ask the Questions? first appeared on Quanta Magazine | Continue reading
Mathematicians have started to prepare for a profound shift in what it means to do math. The post Mathematical Beauty, Truth and Proof in the Age of AI first appeared on Quanta Magazine | Continue reading
AI researchers are using techniques inspired by neuroscience to study how language models work — and to reveal how perplexing they can be. The post Why Language Models Are So Hard To Understand first appeared on Quanta Magazine | Continue reading
Recent flybys of the fiery world refute a leading theory of its inner structure — and reveal how little is understood about geologically active moons. The post What’s Going On Inside Io, Jupiter’s Volcanic Moon? first appeared on Quanta Magazine | Continue reading
Rose Yu has a plan for how to make AI better, faster and smarter — and it’s already yielding results. The post Improving Deep Learning With a Little Help From Physics first appeared on Quanta Magazine | Continue reading
Micro decisions can have macro consequences. A soft matter physicist reveals how interactions within simple cellular collectives can lead to emergent physical traits. The post How a Biofilm’s Strange Shape Emerges From Cellular Geometry first appeared on Quanta Magazine | Continue reading
According to mathematical legend, Peter Sarnak and Noga Alon made a bet about optimal graphs in the late 1980s. They’ve now both been proved wrong. The post New Proof Settles Decades-Old Bet About Connected Networks first appeared on Quanta Magazine | Continue reading
Quantum gravity could help physicists unite the currently incompatible worlds of quantum mechanics and gravity. In this episode, Monika Schleier-Smith discusses her pioneering experimental approach, using laser-cooled atoms to explore whether gravity could emerge from quantum ent … | Continue reading
Every soft caress of wind, searing burn and seismic rumble is detected by our skin’s tangle of touch sensors. David Ginty has spent his career cataloging the neurons beneath everyday sensations. The post Touch, Our Most Complex Sense, Is a Landscape of Cellular Sensors first appe … | Continue reading