Science and Math News | Quanta Magazine
The first planet beyond our solar system was identified just 30 years ago. Since then, thousands have been found and characterized. As we look for more, exoplanet experts are also probing for signs of alien biospheres hundreds of light-years away.
Puzzles - Quanta Magazine
Feb 16, 2024 · In honor of the actor and activist Nichelle Nichols, this month’s puzzle imagines a Star Trek adventure in which her character, Lieutenant Uhura, faces a life-and-death conundrum.
High-Temperature Superconductivity Understood at Last
Sep 21, 2022 · The research advances the perennial ambition of the field: to take cuprate superconductivity and strengthen its underlying mechanism, in order to design world-changing materials capable of superconducting electricity at even higher temperatures.
What Is the Nature of Time? - Quanta Magazine
Feb 29, 2024 · STROGATZ: Well, I’m very happy to be chatting with you again. I loved your whole book Fundamentals, and the explanation you gave of time and how to think about time for me was one of the most poignant and beautiful.But I’d like to begin with a sort of personal question about your experience of time, just as a son and a person, a husband, I don’t know.
Physicists Reveal a Quantum Geometry That Exists Outside of …
Sep 25, 2024 · Now Figueiredo’s conspiracy is another manifestation of abstract geometric structure that seems to underlie particle physics. “The overall program is inching closer to Nima’s long-term dream of space-time and quantum mechanics emerging from a new set of principles,” said Sebastian Mizera, a physicist who studies amplitudes at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey ...
Physicists Nail Down the ‘Magic Number’ That Shapes the Universe
Dec 2, 2020 · As fundamental constants go, the speed of light, c, enjoys all the fame, yet c’s numerical value says nothing about nature; it differs depending on whether it’s measured in meters per second or miles per hour.The fine-structure constant, by contrast, has no dimensions or units. It’s a pure number that shapes the universe to an astonishing degree — “a magic number that comes to us ...
Abstractions blog - Quanta Magazine
Apr 22, 2024 · Abstractions navigates promising ideas in science and mathematics. Journey with us and join the conversation.
How ‘Embeddings’ Encode What Words Mean — Sort Of
Sep 18, 2024 · Researchers once specified these embeddings by hand, but now they’re generated automatically. For instance, neural networks can be trained to group words (or, technically, fragments of text called tokens) according to …
Physicists Finally Find a Problem Only Quantum Computers Can …
Mar 12, 2024 · The answers started to emerge last year, when Chi-Fang (Anthony) Chen, another author of the recent paper, helped develop a new quantum algorithm that could simulate quantum thermodynamics (which studies the impact of heat, energy and work on a quantum system). “I think many people have [researched] the question about what the energy landscape looks like in quantum systems, but previously ...
Quanta Magazine’s Science and Math Podcasts
Listen to Steven Strogatz interview leading researchers about the great scientific and mathematical questions of our time on “The Joy of Why” podcast, or stay informed about math, physics, biology and computer science news on “The Quanta Science Podcast.”