Suppose you have a thousand-page book, but each page has only a single line of text. You’re supposed to extract the information contained in the book using a scanner, only this particular scanner systematically goes […]
Category: quantamagazine
As a boy growing up in Rochester, England, Chris German knew of his family’s strong maritime tradition, and he had no intention of continuing it. One of his grandfathers had served in the Royal Navy […]
Heat death held a morbid fascination for Victorian-era physicists. It was an early example of how everyday physics connects to the grandest themes in cosmology. Drop ice cubes into a glass of water, and you […]
Mathematicians rejoice when they prove that seemingly impossible things exist. Such is the case with a new proof posted online in March by Cédric Pilatte, a first-year graduate student at the University of Oxford. Pilatte […]
Until recently, gerrymandered districts tended to stick out, identifiable by their contorted tendrils. This is no longer the case. “With modern technology, you can gerrymander pretty effectively without making your shapes very weird,” said Beth […]
Neuroscience has made progress in deciphering how our brains think and perceive our surroundings, but a central feature of cognition is still deeply mysterious: namely, that many of our perceptions and thoughts are accompanied by […]
With more than 9 billion gigabytes of information traveling the internet every day, researchers are constantly looking for new ways to compress data into smaller packages. Cutting-edge techniques focus on lossy approaches, which achieve compression […]
The marine creatures called skates skim along the sea bottom, rippling their winglike pectoral fins to propel themselves and to stir up small creatures hiding in the sand. Their unusual flattened body plan makes them […]
Renate Loll has seen universes that would give Doctor Strange nightmares. She’s explored 3D worlds, flatlands and fractured realities with fractional dimensions. She’s seen universes with gentle curves and universes exploding with violent spikes. She’s […]
Is this the real life? Is this just fantasy? Those aren’t just lyrics from the Queen song “Bohemian Rhapsody.” They’re also the questions that the brain must constantly answer while processing streams of visual signals […]
Recent Comments