When she was 10 years old, Rose Yu got a birthday present that would change her life — and, potentially, the way we study physics. Her uncle got her a computer. That was a rare […]
Tag: quantamagazine
Biofilms lead lives of liminality. Just a few cells thick, these layered communities of microbes anchor themselves to solid surfaces at interfaces — where rocks meet salt water in tide pools, between plants and dirt […]
It started with a bet. In the late 1980s, at a conference in Lausanne, the mathematicians Noga Alon and Peter Sarnak got into a friendly debate. Both were studying collections of nodes and edges called […]
Quantum gravity is one of the biggest unresolved and challenging problems in physics, as it seeks to reconcile quantum mechanics, which governs the microscopic world, and general relativity, which describes the macroscopic world of gravity […]
Like many proud parents, David Ginty has decorated his office with pictures of his genetic creations. There’s the prickly one sporting a spiked collar and the wannabe cowboy twirling a lasso. There’s the dramatic one, […]
Language isn’t always necessary. While it certainly helps in getting across certain ideas, some neuroscientists have argued that many forms of human thought and reasoning don’t require the medium of words and grammar. Sometimes, the […]
On a quiet pandemic afternoon in 2021, Zihyuan Wang, then a graduate student at Rice University, was alleviating his boredom by working on a weird mathematical problem. After he found an exotic solution, he started […]
Growing up, Tai-Danae Bradley had no love for math. In 2008, she entered the City College of New York, where she played for the basketball team and hoped to start a career in sports nutrition. […]
Humans tend to put our own intelligence on a pedestal. Our brains can do math, employ logic, explore abstractions and think critically. But we can’t claim a monopoly on thought. Among a variety of nonhuman […]
They say a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush, but for computer scientists, two birds in a hole are better still. That’s because those cohabiting birds are the protagonists of a […]
Recent Comments