Read and discuss the latest news and trends in mathematics, physics, computer science and life science research. At Quanta Magazine, scientific accuracy is every bit as important as telling a good story.
Since Quanta is a nonprofit foundation-funded publication, all of its resources go toward producing responsible, freely accessible journalism that is meticulously researched, reported, edited, copy-edited and fact-checked. And our editorial independence ensures the impartiality of our science coverage — our articles do not reflect or represent the views of the Simons Foundation. All editorial decisions, including which research or researchers to cover, are made by Quanta’s staff reporting to the editor in chief; editorial content is not reviewed by anyone outside of the news team prior to publication; Quanta has no involvement in any of the Simons Foundation’s grant-giving or research efforts; and researchers who receive funding from the foundation do not receive preferential treatment. The decision to cover a particular researcher or research result is made solely on editorial grounds in service of our readers.
Since Quanta is a nonprofit foundation-funded publication, all of its resources go toward producing responsible, freely accessible journalism that is meticulously researched, reported, edited, copy-edited and fact-checked. And our editorial independence ensures the impartiality of our science coverage — our articles do not reflect or represent the views of the Simons Foundation. All editorial decisions, including which research or researchers to cover, are made by Quanta’s staff reporting to the editor in chief; editorial content is not reviewed by anyone outside of the news team prior to publication; Quanta has no involvement in any of the Simons Foundation’s grant-giving or research efforts; and researchers who receive funding from the foundation do not receive preferential treatment. The decision to cover a particular researcher or research result is made solely on editorial grounds in service of our readers.
Mission: Quanta Magazine's mission is to enhance public understanding of research developments in mathematics and the physical and life sciences.
Operating as usual
The ocean’s surface, including melting sea ice, releases iodine into the atmosphere. This iodine may react with other trace chemicals in the air to seed the formation of heat-trapping clouds in the Arctic, a new study found. https://www.quantamagazine.org/cloud-making-aerosol-could-devastate-polar-sea-ice-20210223/
An overlooked but powerful driver of cloud formation could accelerate the loss of polar sea ice.
Mathematicians Laura DeMarco, Holly Krieger and Hexi Ye recently used techniques from dynamical systems to solve a decades-old problem in number theory that didn’t seem to have any clear connection to dynamical systems at all. Their proof quantifies the number of times that a type of curve can intersect special points in a surrounding space. https://www.quantamagazine.org/with-arithmetic-dynamics-mathematicians-unlock-new-insights-20210222/
In an episode of “The Joy of x” podcast, mathematician John Urschel tells host Steven Strogatz about the year he spent juggling full-time graduate work at MIT with playing professional football for the Baltimore Ravens. His advice? “Don’t do it.” https://www.quantamagazine.org/john-urschel-from-nfl-player-to-mathematician-20200225/
John Urschel, who retired from playing professional football with the Baltimore Ravens to become a mathematician, talks to host Steven Strogatz about the fascinations of graph theory that lured him aw
The D-Wave quantum annealer (a sort of quantum calculator) has carried out a quantum simulation a few million times more quickly than a rival CPU, John Timmer reports for Ars Technica.
https://arstechnica.com/science/2021/02/d-waves-hardware-outperforms-a-classic-computer/
The quantum system has beaten classical systems before, but setting up — much less interpreting — a fair and informative head-to-head competition is tricky, Stephen Ornes reported for Quanta in 2016.
https://www.quantamagazine.org/computings-search-for-the-best-quantum-questions-20160602/
Recent tests show that quantum computers made by D-Wave systems should solve some problems faster than ordinary computers. Researchers have begun to map out exactly which queries might benefit from th
Computers can’t store unlimited amounts of data. Jelani Nelson develops algorithms that find a way around that challenge. https://www.quantamagazine.org/jelani-nelson-the-computer-scientist-who-shrinks-big-data-20201207/
Researchers have taught programs to excel at Atari games by asking them to balance the risks of exploring new environments against the rewards of revisiting old ones. In effect, the program have been given a sense of caution, Paul Rincon reports for the BBC.
https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-56194855
The research advances a method known as “reinforcement learning,” in which machines learn to navigate an unfamiliar world (like Mario’s 1-1) by exploiting a sense of curiosity, John Pavlus explained for Quanta in 2017.
https://www.quantamagazine.org/clever-machines-learn-how-to-be-curious-20170919/
Computer scientists are finding ways to code curiosity into intelligent machines.
Donald Richards is digging into the data to unearth underlying truths about our universe. Richards’ work has impacted the financial and agricultural sectors; it has improved cell phone data transmission, and it has even been used to classify galaxies.
https://www.quantamagazine.org/donald-richards-seeks-patterns-in-the-data-of-life-and-the-universe-20180411/
The statistician Donald Richards lives to uncover subtle patterns hiding in real-world data.
Artificial neurons and biological ones process the signals they receive in conceptually similar ways, though the details of their operation differ. https://www.quantamagazine.org/artificial-neural-nets-finally-yield-clues-to-how-brains-learn-20210218/
In a new column for Quanta, infectious disease epidemiologist Dr. Tara C. Smith explains how viruses like SARS-CoV-2 evolve: “When the virus chances upon beneficial mutations, it’s as if it won the lottery.” https://www.quantamagazine.org/how-to-understand-covid-19-variants-and-their-effects-on-vaccines-20210225/
Researchers are tracking the different strains of SARS-CoV-2 and studying how they spread through our population and our bodies.
Researchers have detected a shower of energetic neutrinos and followed it back to its source in the cosmos — a colossal black hole shredding a nearby star, Daniel Clery reports for Science Magazine.
https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2021/02/rare-cosmic-neutrino-traced-star-swallowing-black-hole
The first time neutrinos were linked to a specific deep space object was in 2017, when physicists caught a stream of the ghostly particles arriving from a flaring supermassive black hole known as a blazar, Katia Moskvitch reported for Quanta at the time.
https://www.quantamagazine.org/neutrinos-linked-with-cosmic-source-for-the-first-time-20180712/
High-energy neutrinos have been traced back to a flaring supermassive black hole known as a blazar. The long-sought link opens the door to an entirely new way to study the universe.
BREAKING: In a paper published today in Nature, physicists have described a strange asymmetry in the amount of antimatter inside a proton. The finding comes from SeaQuest, an experiment that has been running at Fermilab for 20 years. Natalie Wolchover reports. https://www.quantamagazine.org/protons-antimatter-revealed-by-decades-old-experiment-20210224/
From 2018: Songbirds and humans are among the few species that can imitate novel sounds. Neuroscientist Erich Jarvis found the surprising roots of that ability and its connection to spoken language. https://www.quantamagazine.org/erich-jarvis-in-birds-songs-brains-and-genes-he-finds-clues-to-speech-20180130/
The neuroscientist Erich Jarvis found that songbirds' vocal skills and humans' spoken language are both rooted in neural pathways for controlling learned movements.
Clumps of brain cells in lab dishes shift their genetic activity at around nine months old, as if preparing for birth, Kelly Servick reports for Science Magazine. The find hints that the “organoids” may be useful for studying certain aspects of more mature brains.
https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2021/02/brain-cell-clusters-grown-lab-more-year-mirror-changes-newborn-s-brain
The longer organoids sit, the more interesting they become. As Jordana Cepelewicz reported for Quanta in 2017, mature mini-brains can produce non-neural cells known as astrocytes, which are otherwise difficult for researchers to grow.
https://www.quantamagazine.org/the-oldest-mini-brains-have-lifelike-young-cells-20170829/
"Organoid" brain tissue models grown in a lab for two years can help scientists study a critical period of development just before and after birth.
Season two of "The Joy of x," a Quanta podcast hosted by mathematician Steven Strogatz, begins on March 2nd. Listen to the preview now: https://www.quantamagazine.org/podcast-preview-the-joy-of-x-season-two-20210223/
Subscribe here: hyperurl.co/zqzvfs
The CLOUD chamber at CERN is a giant chamber that tries to model processes in Earth’s atmosphere with extreme precision. A recent experiment has helped scientists understand how iodine aerosols serve as a seed for cloud growth. https://www.quantamagazine.org/cloud-making-aerosol-could-devastate-polar-sea-ice-20210223/
The statistician George E.P. Box famously said, “All models are wrong, but some are useful.” Our video investigates how usefully wrong COVID-19 models have been and why their true value often gets lost in translation. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wKOslhIFt6U
When a plane exceeds the speed of sound, pressure waves coalesce into a potentially destructive wave called a sonic boom. During her 40 years of work for NASA, Christine Darden built the foundation for developing planes with a softer boom. https://www.quantamagazine.org/the-nasa-engineer-whos-a-mathematician-at-heart-20210119/
“I would say that when it comes to teaching, there’s a big problem that we haven’t solved yet, which is how to solve the issue of mathematics not necessarily being something that everyone thinks is great and everyone wants to do. That’s a big problem.” https://www.quantamagazine.org/po-shen-loh-led-the-u-s-math-team-back-to-first-place-20210216/
Po-Shen Loh has harnessed his competitive impulses and iconoclastic tendencies to reinvigorate the U.S. Math Olympiad program.
The case for a hypothesized Planet Nine may be weakening. A new analysis concludes that the observed cluster of ice balls that hint at the planet’s presence might in fact be an illusion, Lisa Grossman reports for Science News.
https://www.sciencenews.org/article/hidden-planet-nine-solar-system-evidence-may-not-hold-up
The debate over observational bias — whether astronomers have truly discerned a band of remote objects or whether their surveys just favor sightings in some zones over others — has raged for years, as Natalie Wolchover reported for Quanta in 2017. Only upcoming observations can settle the issue.
https://www.quantamagazine.org/planet-nine-is-put-on-trial-in-absentia-20170627/
Breathless media coverage notwithstanding, the cases for and against a hypothetical Planet Nine in the outskirts of the solar system remain inconclusive.
From 2018: “As an educator I know I have a duty to continually educate the world. But I’m just one little guy. At some point, you know what, I’m going to go cook myself a nice dinner and have a glass of wine and let the world do whatever it wants.” https://www.quantamagazine.org/donald-richards-seeks-patterns-in-the-data-of-life-and-the-universe-20180411/
The statistician Donald Richards lives to uncover subtle patterns hiding in real-world data.
Arithmetic dynamics, a field of math forged from overlaps between number theory and dynamical systems, is solving problems that neither of its parent fields solved on their own. https://www.quantamagazine.org/with-arithmetic-dynamics-mathematicians-unlock-new-insights-20210222
A new proof demonstrates the power of arithmetic dynamics, an emerging discipline that combines insights from number theory and dynamical systems.
Some algorithms that enable deep neural nets to learn need to keep the signals for processing data and updating the behavior of neurons separate. Pyramidal neurons in the brain’s cortex have a structure that might be suited to that requirement. https://www.quantamagazine.org/artificial-neural-nets-finally-yield-clues-to-how-brains-learn-20210218/
When the first black hole collision was detected in 2015, it was a watershed moment. Now, physicists have a catalog of almost 50 collisions to scrutinize, a wealth of data that may herald a new era of black hole astronomy. https://www.quantamagazine.org/new-black-holes-offer-physicists-a-radical-probe-of-the-cosmos-20210217/
One black hole is nice, but astrophysicists can do a lot more science with 50 of them.
From the archives: Cassandra Extavour, a developmental biologist at Harvard, studies the evolution of multicellular organisms, particularly the division of labor between germ cells and other cells. https://www.quantamagazine.org/exploring-the-evolution-of-multicellularity-with-cassandra-extavour-20130925/
An interview with the developmental biologist Cassandra Extavour on the origins of multicellular organisms and the evolution of cooperation.
Po-Shen Loh has led the U.S. International Mathematical Olympiad team to four first-place rankings in the last six years as the team’s head coach. “My goal as coach wasn’t going to be to win, it was going to be to maximize the number of [participants] that I read about in The New York Times in 20 years.” https://www.quantamagazine.org/po-shen-loh-led-the-u-s-math-team-back-to-first-place-20210216/
Po-Shen Loh has harnessed his competitive impulses and iconoclastic tendencies to reinvigorate the U.S. Math Olympiad program.
From 2018: Neuroscientist Erich Jarvis discusses the “continuum hypothesis of vocal learning” that may have led to human speech. https://www.quantamagazine.org/erich-jarvis-in-birds-songs-brains-and-genes-he-finds-clues-to-speech-20180130/
The neuroscientist Erich Jarvis found that songbirds' vocal skills and humans' spoken language are both rooted in neural pathways for controlling learned movements.
Cygnus X-1 — the OG black hole — may have about 50% more heft than expected, weighing in at 21 suns. The new measurement casts doubt on how much stars shrink before dying, Maria Temming reports for Science News.
https://www.sciencenews.org/article/first-black-hole-discovery-cygnus-massive
Once limited to indirect observations of a few black holes, astrophysicists are now reveling in the dozens of direct detections of the merging monsters revealed by gravitational waves. The observations form a swiftly growing catalog that traces the universe’s development in a whole new way, Thomas Lewton recently reported for Quanta.
https://www.quantamagazine.org/new-black-holes-offer-physicists-a-radical-probe-of-the-cosmos-20210217/
One black hole is nice, but astrophysicists can do a lot more science with 50 of them.
From 2017: How can you use a sphere to talk to Mars?https://www.quantamagazine.org/how-spherical-codes-work-20170412/
To avoid garbled messages, mathematicians might translate them into geometric form.
“In recent years, I’ve been talking to students all over the country. Invariably, the young women come up and say, ‘We didn’t know women did work like that!’ Girls need to know that women do this work.” https://www.quantamagazine.org/the-nasa-engineer-whos-a-mathematician-at-heart-20210119/
Christine Darden worked at NASA for 40 years, helping make supersonic planes quieter and forging a path for women to follow in her footsteps.
New from the Quanta Science Podcast: This is a story about a mathematician and a geophysicist who turn lofty math into literal stone. https://www.quantamagazine.org/geometry-reveals-how-the-world-is-assembled-from-cubes-20201119/
Subscribe to the Quanta Science Podcast here:
Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/quanta-science-podcast/id1021340531
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/7oKXOpbHzbICFUcJNbZ5wF?si=6WRENh4oQ6qxw8X5xJHHiA
Google Podcasts: https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cucXVhbnRhbWFnYXppbmUub3JnL2ZlZWQvcG9kY2FzdC8
An exercise in pure mathematics has led to a wide-ranging theory of how the world comes together.
We have mapped out the biggest ideas in physics: https://www.quantamagazine.org/frontier-of-physics-interactive-map-20150803
“People often ask me about being Black in science in America. But I think in the Virgin Islands, somehow my race was less important down there. Because almost everybody’s Black.” https://www.quantamagazine.org/jelani-nelson-the-computer-scientist-who-shrinks-big-data-20201207/
New from the Quanta YouTube channel: Po-Shen Loh has led the U.S. International Mathematical Olympiad team to four first-place rankings in the last six years as the team’s head coach. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MsskCxQ4sks
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Quanta Magazine’s goal is to enhance public understanding of science. Our reporters focus on developments in mathematics, theoretical physics, theoretical computer science and the basic life sciences. At Quanta, scientific accuracy is every bit as important as telling a good story. And having editorial independence ensures the impartiality of our science coverage, so while our publication was launched by the Simons Foundation, our articles do not necessarily reflect or represent the foundation’s views. https://www.quantamagazine.org/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/QuantaNews Twitter: https://twitter.com/QuantaMagazine Sign up for our weekly newsletter: http://eepurl.com/6FnWj
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