I have a confession: When I was 4, I was kicked out of ballet class for asking too many questions. I asked why a lot, like any kid. And I guess the teacher didn’t appreciate […]
Category: quantamagazine
Every year, around 1,000 Type Ia supernovas erupt in the sky. These stellar explosions brighten and then fade away in a pattern so repeatable that they’re used as “standard candles” — objects so uniformly bright […]
Artificial intelligence researchers have celebrated a string of successes with neural networks, computer programs that roughly mimic how our brains are organized. But despite rapid progress, neural networks remain relatively inflexible, with little ability to […]
The most powerful formula in physics starts with a slender S, the symbol for a sort of sum known as an integral. Further along comes a second S, representing a quantity known as action. Together, […]
Over 60 years ago, Ralph Fox posed a problem about knots that haunts mathematicians to this day. His question is now often formulated as the “slice-ribbon conjecture,” which posits that two seemingly distinct groups of […]
Imagine that your neighbor calls to ask a favor: Could you please feed their pet rabbit some carrot slices? Easy enough, you’d think. You can imagine their kitchen, even if you’ve never been there — […]
Over the last few decades, an idea called the critical brain hypothesis has been helping neuroscientists understand how the human brain operates as an information-processing powerhouse. It posits that the brain is always teetering between […]
A group of astronomers poring over data from the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has glimpsed light from a rare isotope of helium in a distant galaxy, which could indicate the presence of the universe’s […]
Physicists have coaxed particles of light into undergoing opposite transformations simultaneously, like a human turning into a werewolf as the werewolf turns into a human. In carefully engineered circuits, the photons act as if time […]
People often think they know what causes chronic depression. Surveys indicate that more than 80% of the public blames a “chemical imbalance” in the brain. That idea is widespread in pop psychology and cited in […]
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