Bookmarks (70)

On his way to winning a Fields Medal, James Maynard has cut a path through simple-sounding questions about prime numbers that have stumped mathematicians for centuries. The post A Solver of the Hardest Easy Problems About Prime Numbers first appeared on Quanta Magazine

With Hugo Duminil-Copin, thinking rarely happens without moving. His insights into the flow-related properties of complex networks have earned him the Fields Medal. The post For His Sporting Approach to Math, a Fields Medal first appeared on Quanta Magazine

Artificial intelligence has bested humans at problem-solving challenges like chess and Go. Is mathematics research next? Steven Strogatz speaks with mathematician Kevin Buzzard to learn about the effort to translate math into language that computers understand. The post Can Computers Be Mathematicians? first appeared on Quanta Magazine

Protein buildups like those seen around neurons in Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s and other brain diseases occur in all aging cells, a new study suggests. Learning their significance may reveal new strategies for treating age-related diseases. The post Protein Blobs Linked to Alzheimer’s Affect Aging in All Cells first appeared on Quanta Magazine

In recreational mathematics, the balance scale is an endless source of puzzles that require precise and elaborate logic and teach the fundamentals of generalization. The post How to Weigh Truth With a Balance Scale first appeared on Quanta Magazine

Intelligent beings learn by interacting with the world. Artificial intelligence researchers have adopted a similar strategy to teach their virtual agents new tricks. The post By Exploring Virtual Worlds, AI Learns in New Ways first appeared on Quanta Magazine

A new proof identifies precisely how large a mathematical graph must be before it contains a regular substructure. The post Mathematical Connect-the-Dots Reveals How Structure Emerges first appeared on Quanta Magazine

Quantum computers may derive their power from the “magical” way that properties of particles change depending on the context. The post The Spooky Quantum Phenomenon You’ve Never Heard Of first appeared on Quanta Magazine

Akiko Iwasaki, an immunologist who became a lifeline for the worried and the curious during the pandemic, thinks that nasal spray vaccines could be the next needed breakthrough in our fight against the coronavirus. The post An Immunologist Fights Covid with Tweets and a Nasal Spray first appeared on Quanta Magazine

For decades mathematicians have searched for a specific pair of surfaces that can’t be transformed into each other in four-dimensional space. Now they’ve found them. The post Surfaces So Different Even a Fourth Dimension Can’t Make Them the Same first appeared on Quanta Magazine

Without a good definition of life, how do we look for it on alien planets? Steven Strogatz speaks with Robert Hazen, a mineralogist and astrobiologist, and Sheref Mansy, a chemist, to learn more. The post What Is Life? first appeared on Quanta Magazine

Physicists have solved a key problem of robotic locomotion by revising the usual rules of interaction between simple component parts. The post Wheel Made of ‘Odd Matter’ Spontaneously Rolls Uphill first appeared on Quanta Magazine

Neuroscientists uncovered an energy-saving mode in vision-system neurons that works at the cost of being able to see fine-grained details. The post The Brain Has a ‘Low-Power Mode’ That Blunts Our Senses first appeared on Quanta Magazine

Daniel Spielman solves important problems by thinking hard — about other questions. The post The Computer Scientist Who Parlays Failures Into Breakthroughs first appeared on Quanta Magazine

Observations of faraway planets have forced a near-total rewrite of the story of how our solar system came to be. The post Astronomers Reimagine the Making of the Planets first appeared on Quanta Magazine

Computer scientists can now solve a decades-old problem in practically the time it takes to write it down. The post Researchers Achieve ‘Absurdly Fast’ Algorithm for Network Flow first appeared on Quanta Magazine

The lush biodiversity of the Amazon may be due in part to the dynamics of branching rivers, which serve as invisible fences that continuously barricade and merge bird populations. The post Reshuffled Rivers Bolster the Amazon’s Hyper-Biodiversity first appeared on Quanta Magazine

Jared Duker Lichtman, 26, has proved a longstanding conjecture relating prime numbers to a broad class of “primitive” sets. To his adviser, it came as a “complete shock.” The post Graduate Student’s Side Project Proves Prime Number Conjecture first appeared on Quanta Magazine

Some animal neuropeptides have been around longer than nervous systems. The post Brain-Signal Proteins Evolved Before Animals Did first appeared on Quanta Magazine

Using ideas borrowed from graph theory, two mathematicians have shown that extremely complex surfaces are easy to traverse. The post Surfaces Beyond Imagination Are Discovered After Decades-Long Search first appeared on Quanta Magazine

The Langlands program provides a beautifully intricate set of connections between various areas of mathematics, pointing the way toward novel solutions for old problems. The post What Is the Langlands Program? first appeared on Quanta Magazine

How did life arise on Earth? Steven Strogatz speaks with the Nobel Prize-winning biologist Jack Szostak and Betül Kaçar, a paleogeneticist and astrobiologist, to explore our best understanding of how we all got here. The post How Could Life Evolve From Cyanide? first appeared on Quanta Magazine

Physicists are building neural networks out of vibrations, voltages and lasers, arguing that the future of computing lies in exploiting the universe’s complex physical behaviors. The post How to Make the Universe Think for Us first appeared on Quanta Magazine

Four puzzle solutions reveal different ways to divine someone’s hidden number with impossibly little information. The post The Secret Math Behind Mind-Reading Magic Tricks first appeared on Quanta Magazine

A bit of information theory can help you analyze — and improve — your Wordle game. The post Why Claude Shannon Would Have Been Great at Wordle first appeared on Quanta Magazine

RNA and peptides coevolving in the primordial world might have jointly served as a precursor to the modern ribosome. The post Life’s First Peptides May Have Grown on RNA Strands first appeared on Quanta Magazine

Why verify every line of a proof, when just a few checks will do? The post How Computer Scientists Learned to Reinvent the Proof first appeared on Quanta Magazine

Synthetic biology experiments suggest a “MultiFate” model for how genetically identical cells become the many different types found in complex organisms like us. The post Simple Gene Circuits Hint at How Stem Cells Find New Identities first appeared on Quanta Magazine

The space telescope is one of the most ambitious scientific projects ever undertaken. Marcia Rieke and Nikole Lewis, two of the scientists leading JWST investigations, talk to Steven Strogatz about how it may transform our understanding of the universe. The post Will the James Webb Space Telescope Reveal Another Earth? first appeared on Quanta Magazine

“Ribbon concordance” will let mathematicians compare knots by linking them across four-dimensional space. The post How Complex Is a Knot? New Proof Reveals Ranking System That Works first appeared on Quanta Magazine

By resolving a paradox about light in a box, researchers hope to clarify the concept of energy in quantum theory. The post Puzzling Quantum Scenario Appears Not to Conserve Energy first appeared on Quanta Magazine

Researchers say we’re on the cusp of “GoPro physics,” where a camera can point at an event and an algorithm can identify the underlying physics equation. The post Powerful ‘Machine Scientists’ Distill the Laws of Physics From Raw Data first appeared on Quanta Magazine

Several projects are aiming to bring back mammoths and other species that have vanished from the planet. Whether that’s technically possible is beside the point. The post Why ‘De-Extinction’ Is Impossible (But Could Work Anyway) first appeared on Quanta Magazine

When researchers gave a genetic molecule the ability to replicate, it evolved over time into a complex network of “hosts” and “parasites” that both competed and cooperated to survive. The post In Test Tubes, RNA Molecules Evolve Into a Tiny Ecosystem first appeared on Quanta Magazine

Einstein’s description of curved space-time doesn’t easily mesh with a universe made up of quantum wavefunctions. Theoretical physicist Sean Carroll discusses the quest for quantum gravity with host Steven Strogatz. The post Where Do Space, Time and Gravity Come From? first appeared on Quanta Magazine

Mathematical magic can seem like mind reading. Your job is to reveal the secret behind these four tricks. The post Think of a Number. How Do Math Magicians Know What It Is? first appeared on Quanta Magazine

Throwing out data seems to make measurements of distances and angles more precise. The reason why has been traced to Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle. The post Physicists Pin Down How Quantum Uncertainty Sharpens Measurements first appeared on Quanta Magazine

The famed Navier-Stokes equations can lead to cases where more than one result is possible, but only in an extremely narrow set of situations. The post Mathematicians Coax Fluid Equations Into Nonphysical Solutions first appeared on Quanta Magazine

Robots are about to venture into the sunless depths of lunar craters to investigate ancient water ice trapped there, while remote studies find hints about how water arrives on rocky worlds. The post Secrets of the Moon’s Permanent Shadows Are Coming to Light first appeared on Quanta Magazine

While it’s understandable to focus on the diseases affecting humans, it’s important to study how our illnesses may affect animals. The post What Happens When We Give Animals Our Diseases? first appeared on Quanta Magazine

Was the addition of mitochondria a first step in the formation of complex cells or one of the last? A new study of bacteria tries to answer this contentious question in evolutionary biology. The post Ancient Genes for Symbiosis Hint at Mitochondria’s Origins first appeared on Quanta Magazine

Two young mathematicians have astonished their colleagues with a full proof of the Kahn-Kalai conjecture — a sweeping statement about how structure emerges in random sets and graphs. The post Elegant Six-Page Proof Reveals the Emergence of Random Structure first appeared on Quanta Magazine

Van der Waerden’s conjecture mystified mathematicians for 85 years. Its solution shows how polynomial roots relate to one another. The post New Proof Illuminates the Hidden Structure of Common Equations first appeared on Quanta Magazine

The immune system protects us from a full spectrum of pathogens, but without balance, it can end up hurting us over time, too. The immunologist Shruti Naik explains how our defenses can turn on us. The post Why Is Inflammation a Dangerous Necessity? first appeared on Quanta Magazine

Vijay Balasubramanian investigates whether the fabric of the universe might be built from information, and what it means that physicists can even ask such a question. The post Pondering the Bits That Build Space-Time and Brains first appeared on Quanta Magazine

Traits from RNA molecules passed between multiple generations of worms can work with genetic changes to influence future evolution. The post In Sexy Worms, Inheritance Beyond Genes Can Help Evolution first appeared on Quanta Magazine

Language processing programs are notoriously hard to interpret, but smaller versions can provide important insights into how they work. The post Researchers Gain New Understanding From Simple AI first appeared on Quanta Magazine

The Tonga eruption in January was “basically like Krakatoa 2.” This time, geophysicists could explain the tiny tsunamis that cropped up all over the planet, solving a 139-year-old mystery about Tonga’s predecessor. The post Scientists Unravel How the Tonga Volcano Caused Worldwide Tsunamis first appeared on Quanta Magazine

For centuries, mathematicians have tried to prove that Euler’s fluid equations can produce nonsensical answers. A new approach to machine learning has researchers betting that “blowup” is near. The post Deep Learning Poised to ‘Blow Up’ Famed Fluid Equations first appeared on Quanta Magazine

Life could use a more expansive genetic code in theory, but new work shows that improving on three-letter codons would be a challenge. The post Life With Longer Genetic Codes Seems Possible — but Less Likely first appeared on Quanta Magazine