Some quantum cryptographers want to find ways to keep messages secret even if the rules of quantum mechanics don’t hold. The recently rediscovered idea of quantum jamming complicates things. The post Quantum ‘Jamming’ Explores the Truly Fundamental Principles of Nature … | Continue reading
Dozens of new discoveries reveal that defenses evolved by bacteria and viruses billions of years ago still define our own innate immune system. The post The Ancient Weapons Active in Your Immune System Today first appeared on Quanta Magazine | Continue reading
AI is being used to prove new results at a rapid pace. Mathematicians think this is just the beginning. The post The AI Revolution in Math Has Arrived first appeared on Quanta Magazine | Continue reading
Our tales of AI developing the will to survive, commandeer resources, and manipulate people say more about us than they do about language models. The post Why Do We Tell Ourselves Scary Stories About AI? first appeared on Quanta Magazine | Continue reading
Decades of weird experimental results appeared to support the existence of the sterile neutrino, a hypothetical particle that would solve multiple mysteries. But recent experiments have killed hope of finding these phantoms, leaving physicists to wonder what might explain their a … | Continue reading
A vast meshwork of soil-bound fungi governs life aboveground. In Alaska, and at field sites around the world, researchers are racing to understand exactly how, with essential stores of carbon at stake. The post An Arctic Road Trip Brings Vital Underground Networks into … | Continue reading
Two research groups say they have significantly reduced the amount of qubits and time required to crack common online security technologies. The post New Advances Bring the Era of Quantum Computers Closer Than Ever first appeared on Quanta Magazine | Continue reading
The winning entries in the 2025 Global Physics Photowalk contest showcase the beauty of toil and discovery. The post A Through-The-Lens Look at the World’s Particle Physics Labs first appeared on Quanta Magazine | Continue reading
The basic shape that best describes our expanding universe is also the hardest shape for physicists to understand. The post In Expanding de Sitter Space, Quantum Mechanics Gets Even More Elusive first appeared on Quanta Magazine | Continue reading
Around the world, volcanologists are following the path of magma as it travels between connected volcanoes, in an effort that could lead to improved eruption forecasts. The post When Coupled Volcanoes Talk, These Researchers Listen first appeared on Quanta Magazine | Continue reading
The quest to make mathematics rigorous has a long and spotty history — one mathematicians can learn from as they push to formalize everything in the computer program Lean. The post In Math, Rigor Is Vital. But Are Digitized Proofs Taking It Too Far? first appeared on Q … | Continue reading
David E. Dunning explores how mathematical notation is a social, world-building technology. The post How Writing Changes Mathematical Thought first appeared on Quanta Magazine | Continue reading
Columnist Natalie Wolchover examines the latest developments in the “forever war” over whether string theory can describe the world. The post Are Strings Still Our Best Hope for a Theory of Everything? first appeared on Quanta Magazine | Continue reading
Off the coast of Japan, biologists netted a pea-size jellyfish with an unusual circadian clock — a chance finding that suggests there are likely more overlooked biological timekeeping mechanisms to be discovered. The post The Jellies That Evolved a Different Way To Kee … | Continue reading
Charles Bennett and Gilles Brassard were recognized for their foundational work in quantum information science. The post Quantum Cryptography Pioneers Win Turing Award first appeared on Quanta Magazine | Continue reading
The central limit theorem started as a bar trick for 18th-century gamblers. Now scientists rely on it every day. The post The Math That Explains Why Bell Curves Are Everywhere first appeared on Quanta Magazine | Continue reading
The last decade has seen vast improvements in humanoid robots, but graduating to widespread use might require going back to the fundamentals. The post Why Do Humanoid Robots Still Struggle With the Small Stuff? first appeared on Quanta Magazine | Continue reading
Pushed down to a certain scale, the laws of physics seem to fall apart. Astrid Eichhorn, a leader in an area of study called asymptotic safety, thinks we just need to push a little further. The post Where Some See Strings, She Sees a Space-Time Made of Fractals first a … | Continue reading
Every second, hundreds to thousands of molecules move through thousands of nuclear pores in each of your cells. A new high-definition view reveals the machine in action. The post Disorder Drives One of Nature’s Most Complex Machines first appeared on Quanta Magazine | Continue reading
A straightforward conjecture about runners moving around a track turns out to be equivalent to many complex mathematical questions. Three new proofs mark the first significant progress on the problem in decades. The post New Strides Made on Deceptively Simple ‘Lonely R … | Continue reading
Columnist Natalie Wolchover explores whether applied category theory can be “green” math. The post Can the Most Abstract Math Make the World a Better Place? first appeared on Quanta Magazine | Continue reading
Microscopic crystals extracted from meteorites could help settle a debate about the birth of our patch of the Milky Way. The post What Crystals Older Than the Sun Reveal About the Start of the Solar System first appeared on Quanta Magazine | Continue reading
Growing tissues can crack, break, and dissociate to form structures that can later withstand immense forces. The post Break It To Make It: How Fracturing Sculpts Tissues and Organs first appeared on Quanta Magazine | Continue reading
In an 1874 paper, Georg Cantor proved that there are different sizes of infinity and changed math forever. A trove of newly unearthed letters shows that it was also an act of plagiarism. The post The Man Who Stole Infinity first appeared on Quanta Magazine | Continue reading
Intuition breaks down once we’re dealing with the endless. To begin with: Some infinities are bigger than others. The post How Can Infinity Come in Many Sizes? first appeared on Quanta Magazine | Continue reading
The planet is getting hotter, but one factor in particular makes it hard to tell just how hot it will get. Physicists and computer scientists are racing to solve the problem of clouds. The post Climate Physicists Face the Ghosts in Their Machines: Clouds first appeared … | Continue reading
Innovations in imaging and genetic engineering are coming together to probe the biophysics of cytoplasm inside living animals. The post The Biophysical World Inside a Jam-Packed Cell first appeared on Quanta Magazine | Continue reading
Henry Yuen is developing a new mathematical language to describe problems whose inputs and outputs aren’t ordinary numbers. The post A New Complexity Theory for the Quantum Age first appeared on Quanta Magazine | Continue reading
Columnist Philip Ball thinks the phenomenon of decoherence might finally bridge the quantum-classical divide. The post Are the Mysteries of Quantum Mechanics Beginning To Dissolve? first appeared on Quanta Magazine | Continue reading
We describe electricity as a flow, but that’s not what happens in a typical wire. Physicists have begun to induce electrons to act like fluids, an effort that could illuminate new ways of thinking about quantum systems. The post Physicists Make Electrons Flow Like Wate … | Continue reading
Machine learning is helping neuroscientists organize vast quantities of cells’ genetic data in the latest neurobiological cartography effort. The post Fed on Reams of Cell Data, AI Maps New Neighborhoods in the Brain first appeared on Quanta Magazine | Continue reading
Mathematicians finally understand the behavior of an important class of differential equations that describe everything from water pressure to oxygen levels in human tissues. The post Long-Sought Proof Tames Some of Math’s Unruliest Equations first appeared on Quanta M … | Continue reading
How physically magnifying objects using a key ingredient in diapers has opened an unprecedented view of the microbial world. The post Expansion Microscopy Has Transformed How We See the Cellular World first appeared on Quanta Magazine | Continue reading
Today’s observatories document every pulse and flash in the sky each night. To understand how the cosmos has changed over longer periods, scientists rely on a more tactile technology. The post How Modern and Antique Technologies Reveal a Dynamic Cosmos first appeared o … | Continue reading
New experiments reveal how astrocytes tune neuronal activity to modulate our mental and emotional states. The results suggest that neuron-only brain models, such as connectomes, leave out a crucial layer of regulation. The post Once Thought To Support Neurons, Astrocyt … | Continue reading
Mathematicians are still trying to understand fundamental properties of the Fourier transform, one of their most ubiquitous and powerful tools. A new result marks an exciting advance toward that goal. The post Networks Hold the Key to a Decades-Old Problem About Waves … | Continue reading
Columnist Natalie Wolchover checks in with particle physicists more than a decade after the field entered a profound crisis. The post Is Particle Physics Dead, Dying, or Just Hard? first appeared on Quanta Magazine | Continue reading
Primordial black holes could rewrite our understanding of dark matter and the early universe. A record-breaking detection at the bottom of the Mediterranean Sea has some physicists wondering if we just spotted one. The post Monster Neutrino Could Be a Messenger of Anci … | Continue reading
Researchers recorded the neurons that shape directional navigation as bats explored a remote island off the coast of Tanzania. The post How Animals Build a Sense of Direction first appeared on Quanta Magazine | Continue reading
The Bonnet problem asks when just a bit of information is enough to uniquely identify a whole surface. The post Two Twisty Shapes Resolve a Centuries-Old Topology Puzzle first appeared on Quanta Magazine | Continue reading
The math of data structures helps us understand how different storage systems come with different trade-offs between resources such as time and memory. The post Why There’s No Single Best Way To Store Information first appeared on Quanta Magazine | Continue reading
In an unprecedented step, researchers crafted a detailed model compatible with the universe’s accelerated expansion. The post String Theory Can Now Describe a Universe That Has Dark Energy first appeared on Quanta Magazine | Continue reading
The discovery that tissues use electricity to expel unhealthy cells is part of a surge of renewed interest in the currents flowing through our bodies. The post Cells Use ‘Bioelectricity’ To Coordinate and Make Group Decisions first appeared on Quanta Magazine | Continue reading
A $1 million prize awaits anyone who can show where the math of fluid flow breaks down. With specially trained AI systems, researchers have found a slew of new candidates in simpler versions of the problem. The post Using AI, Mathematicians Find Hidden Glitches in Flui … | Continue reading
Is the inside of a vision model at all like a language model? Researchers argue that as the models grow more powerful, they may be converging toward a singular “Platonic” way to represent the world. The post Distinct AI Models Seem To Converge On How They Encode Realit … | Continue reading
Try as they might, scientists can’t truly rid a space or an object of its energy. But what “zero-point energy” really means is up for interpretation. The post In Quantum Mechanics, Nothingness Is the Potential To Be Anything first appeared on Quanta Magazine | Continue reading
Research into how a father’s choices, including diet, exercise, stress and nicotine use, may transfer traits to his children epigenetically has become impossible to ignore. The post How Dad’s Fitness May Be Packaged and Passed Down in Sperm RNA first appeared on Quanta … | Continue reading
Explore a shape that can’t pass through itself, a teenage prodigy, and two new kinds of infinity. The post The Year in Mathematics first appeared on Quanta Magazine | Continue reading