Category: Quantum Stuff

Mathematicians want to understand how the system behaves below, at and above that critical point. But until around 2008, percolation theory was mostly limited to pinning down the details of the simplest model of percolation, called Bernoulli percolation. It wasn’t until Duminil-Copin made it his mission to extend that understanding to other percolation models that… Continue reading Hugo Duminil-Copin Wins the Fields Medal

In 2013, one of the best — but also one of the worst — things that can happen to a mathematician happened to James Maynard. Fresh out of graduate school, he solved one of the discipline’s oldest and most central problems, about the spacing of prime numbers. It was an achievement that ordinarily would have… Continue reading Number Theorist James Maynard Wins the Fields Medal

By the time he was 17, Mark Braverman had lived in three countries and spoke as many languages. But though he doesn’t have a hometown, he’s quick to call theoretical computer science his home. “Theoretical computer science is whatever you want it to be,” he said in his airy office at Princeton University, sitting between… Continue reading Mark Braverman Wins the IMU Abacus Medal

That’s not to say the work is finished. “It’s much less real than the real world, even the best simulator,” said Daniel Yamins, a computer scientist at Stanford University. With colleagues at MIT and IBM, Yamins co-developed ThreeDWorld, which puts a strong focus on mimicking real-life physics in virtual worlds — things like how liquids… Continue reading AI Makes Strides in Virtual Worlds More Like Our Own

Explore With their daughter in the hospital suffering from kidney failure, Jonathan Bate and his wife Paula Byrne waited. “In that darkest moment, when she was struggling to survive, it was very hard to think of anything other than the prospect of losing her,” Bate says today. Bate and Byrne, both renowned literary scholars and… Continue reading Feeling Stressed? Read a Poem

Chelsea Cook grew to love the low hum of the honeybees she studied as a graduate student in Boulder, Colorado. Their characteristic buzz, she learned, was audible cooperation, the result of worker bees fanning their wings at the colony’s entrance to circulate the air and cool the hive. Cook often watched as the insects responded… Continue reading How Are the Bees?

In 2020 experts at the U.S. Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA) and other public health agencies watched a presentation that many thought was impractical at the time. Several companies proposed to regularly sample wastewater from sewers and treatment plants and run tests to detect SARS-CoV-2—the virus that causes COVID-19. People excrete the virus… Continue reading Wastewater Monitoring Offers Powerful Tool for Tracking COVID and Other Diseases

Russia’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine has unleashed an outpouring of condemnation from scientists and research organizations worldwide. Some organizations in Western nations have moved to quickly sever links with Russia—cutting off funding and resources and ending collaborations with Russian scientists. And from Mauritius to Latvia, national science academies and groups of researchers have issued statements… Continue reading Global Science Community Condemns Russian Invasion of Ukraine

Balance-scale puzzles abound in recreational mathematics. The essential element is the humble two-pan balance scale — a staple of commerce over the millennia that’s still found in bustling rural bazaars in the developing world. The simplest versions consist of a metal beam from which hang two pans at equal distances from the central support or… Continue reading Puzzles on Weighing Truth With a Balance Scale

Explore After experimenting on a hen, his dog, his goldfish, and himself, dentist William Morton was ready. On Oct. 16, 1846, he hurried to the Massachusetts General Hospital surgical theater for what would be the first successful public test of a general anesthetic. His concoction of sulfuric ether and oil from an orange (just for… Continue reading Under Anesthesia, Where Do Our Minds Go?