The Best of Quanta Magazine
20+ most popular Quanta Magazine articles, as voted by our community.
Big ideas in science and math. Because you want to know more. Launched by @SimonsFdn. 2022 Pulitzer Prize in Explanatory Reporting. http://quantamagazine.org
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Physicists Create Elusive Particles That Remember Their Pasts
In two landmark experiments, researchers used quantum processors to engineer exotic particles that have captivated physicists for decades. The work is a step toward crash-proof quantum computers.
A New Theory for the Assembly of Life in the Universe
If we want to understand complex constructions, such as ourselves, assembly theory says we must account for the entire history of how such entities came to be.
Memories Help Brains Recognize New Events Worth Remembering
Memories may affect how well the brain will learn about future events by shifting our perceptions of the world.
A New Approach to Computation Reimagines Artificial Intelligence
By imbuing enormous vectors with semantic meaning, we can get machines to reason more abstractly — and efficiently — than before.
How Can Some Infinities Be Bigger Than Others?
All infinities go on forever, so how is it possible for some infinities to be larger than others? The mathematician Justin Moore discusses the mysteries of infinity with Steven Strogatz.
Quanta Magazine on Biology
Animals Can Count and Use Zero. How Far Does Their Number Sense Go?
Crows recently demonstrated an understanding of the concept of zero. It’s only the latest evidence of animals’ talents for numerical abstraction — which may still differ from our own grasp of numbers.
Why Are Plants Green? To Reduce the Noise in Photosynthesis.
Plants ignore the most energy-rich part of sunlight because stability matters more than efficiency, according to a new model of photosynthesis.
Quanta Magazine on Brain
A Good Memory or a Bad One? One Brain Molecule Decides.
When the brain encodes memories as positive or negative, one molecule determines which way they will go.
Self-Taught AI Shows Similarities to How the Brain Works
Self-supervised learning allows a neural network to figure out for itself what matters. The process might be what makes our own brains so successful.
Quanta Magazine on Computers
Common Sense Comes to Computers
The problem of common-sense reasoning has plagued the field of artificial intelligence for over 50 years. Now a new approach, borrowing from two disparate lines of thinking, has made important…
Computers Evolve a New Path Toward Human Intelligence
By ignoring their goals, evolutionary algorithms have solved longstanding challenges in artificial intelligence.
Quanta Magazine on Computer Science
The Computer Scientist Who Boosts Privacy With Entropy
Harry Halpin wants our internet conversations to be more private. He’s helped create a new kind of network that might make it possible.
Perfecting the Art of Sensible Nonsense
In a watershed moment for cryptography, computer scientists have proposed a solution to a fundamental problem called “program obfuscation.”…
Quanta Magazine on Cryptography
Which Computational Universe Do We Live In?
Cryptographers want to know which of five possible worlds we inhabit, which will reveal whether truly secure cryptography is even possible.
Researchers Identify ‘Master Problem’ Underlying All Cryptography
The existence of secure cryptography depends on one of the oldest questions in computational complexity.
Quanta Magazine on Math
In Mathematics, It Often Takes a Good Map to Find Answers
Mathematicians try to figure out when problems can be solved using current knowledge — and when they have to chart a new path instead.
«“I think one of the reasons we were stonewalled was not because we didn’t have the right techniques, but because the problem wasn’t put in the right conceptual framework,” McMullen said. “The changed question suggested the changed techniques.”»
Computing Expert Says Programmers Need More Math
Leslie Lamport revolutionized how computers talk to each other. Now he’s working on how engineers talk to their machines.
Quanta Magazine on Neural Networks
Artificial Neural Nets Finally Yield Clues to How Brains Learn
The learning algorithm that enables the runaway success of deep neural networks doesn't work in biological brains, but researchers are finding alternatives that could.
Symbolic Mathematics Finally Yields to Neural Networks
After translating some of math’s complicated equations, researchers have created an AI system that they hope will answer even bigger questions.
Quanta Magazine on Physics
Computer Science Proof Lifts Limits on Quantum Entanglement
Three computer scientists have solved the NLTS conjecture, proving that systems of entangled particles can remain difficult to analyze even away from extremes.
A New Kind of Symmetry Shakes Up Physics
So-called “higher symmetries” are illuminating everything from particle decays to the behavior of complex quantum systems.
Quanta Magazine on Quantum Computing
Physicists Create a Wormhole Using a Quantum Computer
The unprecedented experiment explores the possibility that space-time somehow emerges from quantum information, even as the work’s interpretation remains disputed.
Cryptography’s Future Will Be Quantum-Safe. Here’s How It Will Work.
Lattice cryptography promises to protect secrets from the attacks of far-future quantum computers.
Quanta Magazine on Science
How to Make the Universe Think for Us
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.
How the Physics of Nothing Underlies Everything
The key to understanding the origin and fate of the universe may be a more complete understanding of the vacuum.
Popular
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Where Do Space, Time and Gravity Come From?
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.
How Big Is Infinity?
Of all the endless questions children and mathematicians have asked about infinity, one of the most fascinating has to do with its size.
June Huh, High School Dropout, Wins the Fields Medal
June Huh wasn’t interested in mathematics until a chance encounter during his sixth year of college. Now his profound insights connecting combinatorics and geometry have led to math’s highest honor.
The Brain Has a ‘Low-Power Mode’ That Blunts Our Senses
Neuroscientists uncovered an energy-saving mode in vision-system neurons that works at the cost of being able to see fine-grained details.
The Cause of Depression Is Probably Not What You Think
Depression has often been blamed on low levels of serotonin in the brain. That answer is insufficient, but alternatives are coming into view and changing our understanding of the disease.
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