A simple question about a spinning needle has haunted mathematicians for more than a century. It led to the Kakeya conjecture, a cornerstone of modern analysis connecting geometry, fractals, and the behavior of waves. Now, mathematicians Hong Wang and Joshua Zahl have cracked the 3D case — a once-in-a-generation breakthroughContinue Reading
The Fourier transform is a fundamental mathematical tool that breaks complex waveforms into their basic frequency components. Widely used in science and engineering, it underpins technologies from JPEG image compression to MRI scans. ——— – VISIT our website: https://www.quantamagazine.org – LIKE us on Facebook: / quantanews – FOLLOW us Twitter:Continue Reading
Developers and lawmakers say the project will be an economic boon, but concerns about contamination and displacement persist. By Keerti Gopal CHICAGO—A Silicon Valley startup broke ground Tuesday afternoon at a former steelworks site on the Southeast Side for what is planned as the nation’s first large-scale quantum computing facility. Continue Reading
Despite the hype, it’s been surprisingly challenging to find quantum algorithms that outperform classical ones. In this episode, UC Berkeley computer scientist, Ewin Tang, discusses her pioneering work in “dequantizing” quantum algorithms and what it means for the future of quantum computing. “The Joy of Why” is a Quanta MagazineContinue Reading
Mathematician Maggie Miller explores the strange and fascinating world of 4D topology — the study of shapes, or manifolds, that resemble flat Euclidean space when viewed up close. Four-dimensional manifolds behave in unexpectedly complex ways, pushing mathematicians to develop advanced techniques to understand them. Maggie Miller is an assistant professorContinue Reading
One of the most important events in the history of life on Earth was the emergence of multicellularity. In this episode, Will Ratcliff discusses how his snowflake yeast models provide insight into what drove the transition from single-celled to multicellular organisms. S04E01 Will Ratcliff at Georgia Tech has been conductingContinue Reading
Nearly 3,000 years ago, the ancient Babylonians began one of the longest-running science experiments in history. The goal: to predict eclipses. This singular aim has driven innovation across the history of science and mathematics, from the Saros cycle, to Greek geometry, to Newton’s calculus, to the three-body problem. Today, eclipseContinue Reading
For decades, Shor’s algorithm has been the paragon of the power of quantum computers. This set of instructions allows a machine that can exploit the quirks of quantum physics to break large numbers into their prime factors much faster than a regular, classical computer — potentially laying waste to muchContinue Reading
Researchers Robert Hazen and Michael Wong have put forward a bold new law of nature — one that could explain how everything in the universe evolves, from atoms, minerals and stars to living cells, ecosystems and even human civilization. At the heart of their theory is the idea that informationContinue Reading
An interdisciplinary group applied the latest tricks of phylogenetics — using genes and genomes to build evolutionary trees — to trace all of modern life back to our shared ancestor. This ancient cell, or population of cells, is known as LUCA, which stands for “last universal common ancestor,” the oneContinue Reading
Most organic molecules have a mirror-image twin. This concept is known as chirality. Yet life only uses one chiral molecule, not the other. The reason for this asymmetry is one of the greatest mysteries of biology. From Louis Pasteur to stereochemistry to the concept of mirror life, here is theContinue Reading
A team of amateurs recently came together in an online collaboration called the Busy Beaver Challenge to pin down the value of BB(5), the fifth “busy beaver” number — a notoriously difficult problem in theoretical computer science. The busy beaver problem, or “game,” involves finding the Turing machine with aContinue Reading
In 1936, a 23-year-old British mathematician named Alan Turing revolutionized the future of computer science. While exploring the foundations of mathematics, Turing introduced a groundbreaking idea: a machine capable of computing any sequence—given enough time and memory. These theoretical devices, now known as Turing Machines, laid the foundation for modernContinue Reading