In 1963, the mathematician Roy Kerr found a solution to Einstein’s equations that precisely described the space-time outside what we now call a rotating black hole. (The term wouldn’t be coined for a few more […]
Category: quantamagazine
In a rectangular room draped in camouflage netting, four Harris’ hawks took turns flying back and forth between grass-covered perches while scientists recorded their every biomechanical flutter. The researchers were partaking of the time-honored pursuit […]
Artificial intelligence algorithms are designed to learn in fits and starts. Instead of continuously updating their knowledge base with new information over time as humans do, algorithms can learn only during the training phase. After […]
Last year, the particle physicist Lance Dixon was preparing a lecture when he noticed a striking similarity between two formulas that he planned to include in his slides. The formulas, called scattering amplitudes, give the […]
Our recent suite of puzzles featured the humble double-pan balance scale, historically a symbol of commerce and government, art and science. Balance scales are also popular in recreational mathematics. Balance puzzles require clear, logical reasoning […]
Neuroscientists, being interested in how brains work, naturally focus on neurons, the cells that can convey elements of sense and thought to each other via electrical impulses. But equally worthy of study is a substance […]
Everybody gets older, although not everyone ages in the same way. For many people, late life includes a deterioration of health brought on by age-related disease. Yet there are also people who retain a more […]
Physical scientists seem to find the phenomenon of chaos everywhere: in the orbits of planets, in weather systems, in a river’s swirling eddies. For nearly three decades, ecologists considered chaos in the living world to […]
The Kakeya conjecture sounds like a brain teaser. Place a needle flat on a table. How much area do you need in order to be able to turn it so that it points in all […]
As soon as President Biden unveiled the first image from the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) on July 11, Massimo Pascale and his team sprang into action. Coordinating over Slack, Pascale, an astrophysicist at the […]
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