It sounds like one of the easiest experiments possible: Take two cups of water, one hot, one cold. Place both in a freezer and note which one freezes first. Common sense suggests that the colder […]
Category: quantamagazine
The aging brains of people with Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s and other neurodegenerative diseases are suffused with tell-tale aggregates of proteins in or around their neurons. How these protein clumps might be harming the neurons is often […]
Balance-scale puzzles abound in recreational mathematics. The essential element is the humble two-pan balance scale — a staple of commerce over the millennia that’s still found in bustling rural bazaars in the developing world. The […]
In 2009, a computer scientist then at Princeton University named Fei-Fei Li invented a data set that would change the history of artificial intelligence. Known as ImageNet, the data set included millions of labeled images […]
Imagine 100 dots scattered in front of you. In a haphazard variation on connect-the-dots, start drawing lines between the points. How many lines can you draw without producing a triangle? A square? An 11-pointed star? […]
Perhaps the most famously weird feature of quantum mechanics is nonlocality: Measure one particle in an entangled pair whose partner is miles away, and the measurement seems to rip through the intervening space to instantaneously […]
In the United States and some other countries, the Covid-19 pandemic has entered a paradoxical stage in which the coronavirus has evolved into a highly contagious variant and sent cases soaring, but the public’s attitude […]
In geometry and the closely related field of topology, adding a spatial dimension can often have wondrous effects: Previously distinct objects become indistinguishable. But a new proof finds there are some objects whose differences are […]
Scientists don’t really agree on a definition for life. We may recognize life instinctively most of the time, but any time we try to nail it down with set criteria, some stubborn counterexample spoils the […]
In a physics lab in Amsterdam, there’s a wheel that can spontaneously roll uphill by wiggling. This “odd wheel” looks simple: just six small motors linked together by plastic arms and rubber bands to form […]
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