Last December, a gloopy ooze of lava began extruding out of the summit of La Soufrière, a volcano on the Caribbean island of St. Vincent. The effusion was slow at first; no one was threatened. […]
Tag: quantamagazine
In the April Insights puzzle, I tried to guide readers down a path that might be best described as “experimental mathematics.” The goal was to rediscover two constants by iterating simple arithmetic procedures. Readers found […]
“There are many different pathways into mathematics,” said Jordan Ellenberg, a mathematician at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. “There is the stereotype that interest in math displays itself early. That is definitely not true in […]
In the known universe, there is nothing quite like a neutron star. Born from supernovas, these objects contain a star-size mass in a city-size space. This unique trait has led scientists to believe that some […]
Problems in mathematics often have a simple “yes or no” structure: Is this statement true or false? But the most enduring and interesting problems propagate through generations, the products of decades of work, like the […]
Scientists poke and prod at the fringes of habitability in pursuit of life’s limits. To that end, they have tunneled kilometers below Earth’s surface, drilling outward from the bottoms of mine shafts and sinking boreholes […]
Paradoxically, black holes, those infamous swallowers of light and matter, also spew light and matter outward with unparalleled might and efficiency. They power thin beams of plasma called jets that extend thousands of light-years into […]
For decades, mathematicians have debated a simple question about graphs and the number of connections they have. Now, using arguments an undergraduate math student could have come up with, Asaf Ferber of the University of […]
The hydra is a simple creature. Less than half an inch long, its tubular body has a foot at one end and a mouth at the other. The foot clings to a surface underwater — […]
The raging bull locked its legs mid-charge. Digging its hooves into the ground, the beast came to a halt just before it would have gored the man. Not a matador, the man in the bullring […]
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