Random processes take place all around us. It rains one day but not the next; stocks and bonds gain and lose value; traffic jams coalesce and disappear. Because they’re governed by numerous factors that interact […]
Tag: quantamagazine
In 2020, scientists detected a gas called phosphine in the atmosphere of an Earth-size rocky planet. Knowing of no way that phosphine could be produced except through biological processes, “the scientists assert that something now […]
Electroconvulsive therapy has a public relations problem. The treatment, which sends electric currents through the brain to induce a brief seizure, has barbaric, inhumane connotations — for example, it was portrayed as a sadistic punishment […]
Physicists have begun to explore the proton as if it were a subatomic planet. Cutaway maps display newfound details of the particle’s interior. The proton’s core features pressures more intense than in any other known […]
Quantum teleportation isn’t just science fiction; it’s entirely real and happening in laboratories today. But teleporting quantum particles and information is a far cry from beaming people through space. In some ways, it’s even more […]
It took a long time for Claire Voisin to fall in love with mathematics. That’s not to say she ever disliked the subject. Growing up in France — the 10th of 12 children — she […]
Quantum computers are poised to become computational superpowers, but researchers have long sought a viable problem that confers a quantum advantage — something only a quantum computer can solve. Only then, they argue, will the […]
In March 2019, on a train headed southwest from Munich, the neuroscientist Maximilian Bothe adjusted his careful grip on the cooler in his lap. It didn’t contain his lunch. Inside was tissue from half a […]
Computer scientists are a demanding bunch. For them, it’s not enough to get the right answer to a problem — the goal, almost always, is to get the answer as efficiently as possible. Take the […]
It can be hard to tell, at first, when a cell is on the verge of self-destruction. It appears to be going about its usual business, transcribing genes and making proteins. The powerhouse organelles called […]
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