On a shelf lined with terra cotta pots, herbs bend their stems toward the nearest window. In a field of golden wildflowers, leaves rotate with the path of the sun. In a dappled forest, vines […]
Tag: quantamagazine
In 1936, the British mathematician Alan Turing came up with an idea for a universal computer. It was a simple device: an infinite strip of tape covered in zeros and ones, together with a machine […]
The traveling salesperson problem is one of the oldest known computational questions. It asks for the ideal route through a certain list of cities, minimizing mileage. Despite seeming simple, the problem is notoriously difficult. While […]
In the mid-1980s, like Walkman cassette players and tie-dyed shirts, the buglike silhouette of the Mandelbrot set was everywhere. Students plastered it to dorm room walls around the world. Mathematicians received hundreds of letters, eager […]
It’s the championship game of the Imaginary Math League, where the Atlanta Algebras will face the Carolina Cross Products. The two teams haven’t played each other this season, but earlier in the year Atlanta defeated […]
What a joy — pun intended — to co-host season 3 of The Joy of Why alongside (metaphorically if not physically in space or time) my pal Steve Strogatz. When Steve was considering the title […]
To harbor life, at least as we know it, a planet must orbit a star that is relatively calm and stable. The planet’s orbit must also be nearly circular so the planet experiences similar warmth […]
In recent decades, neuroscience has seen some stunning advances, and yet a critical part of the brain remains a mystery. I am referring to the cerebellum, so named for the Latin for “little brain,” which […]
Artificial intelligence seems more powerful than ever, with chatbots like Bard and ChatGPT capable of producing uncannily humanlike text. But for all their talents, these bots still leave researchers wondering: Do such models actually understand […]
In the early 2000s, it seemed that cosmologists had solved the largest and most complex puzzle of all: how the universe works. “There was this amazing moment when all of a sudden, all the pieces […]
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