Amanda Randles wants to copy your body. If the computer scientist had her way, she’d have enough data — and processing power — to effectively clone you on her computer, run the clock forward, and […]
Amanda Randles wants to copy your body. If the computer scientist had her way, she’d have enough data — and processing power — to effectively clone you on her computer, run the clock forward, and […]
Once upon a time, long ago, the world was encased in ice. That’s the tale told by sedimentary rock in the tropics, many geologists believe. Hundreds of millions of years ago, glaciers and sea ice […]
Vacuum decay, a process that could end the universe as we know it, may happen 10,000 times sooner than expected. Fortunately, it still won’t happen for a very, very long time. When physicists speak of […]
A group of nine mathematicians has proved the geometric Langlands conjecture, a key component of one of the most sweeping paradigms in modern mathematics. The proof represents the culmination of three decades of effort, said […]
In 1940, the French mathematician and artillery officer Jean Leray was taken prisoner by the Germans. He told his captors that he was a topologist, fearful that if they discovered his true area of expertise, […]
Ask a question of ChatGPT and other, similar chatbots and there’s a good chance you’ll be impressed at how adeptly it comes up with a good answer — unless it spits out unrealistic nonsense instead. […]
Nitrogen is fundamental to all life on Earth. Organisms use it to make amino acids and nucleic acids — the building blocks of proteins and DNA — among other vital molecules. Luckily, four-fifths of the […]
Sometimes mathematicians try to tackle a problem head on, and sometimes they come at it sideways. That’s especially true when the mathematical stakes are high, as with the Riemann hypothesis, whose solution comes with a […]
Deep in the Caucasus Mountains, on the border between Russia and Georgia, an unusual experiment is taking place. In an underground lab shielded by a mountain of rock, highly radioactive material sits inside a vat […]
In the fall of 2014, Andrew Wilson took a front-row seat in Ken Ono’s number theory class at Emory University in Atlanta. Wilson was not only double majoring in applied math and physics, he was […]
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