There was just one wrinkle: Pasten had no exam to give his students. He instead had them write an essay on whatever topic they wanted. “This turned out to result in very high-quality work,” he said. Pasten submitted his proof to Inventiones Mathematicae, one of math’s preeminent journals, where it was accepted in just over… Continue reading Big Advance on Simple-Sounding Math Problem Was a Century in the Making
Category: Quantum Stuff
‘Quantum Memory’ Proves Exponentially Powerful
It’s not easy to study quantum systems — collections of particles that follow the counterintuitive rules of quantum mechanics. Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle, a cornerstone of quantum theory, says it’s impossible to simultaneously measure a particle’s exact position and its speed — pretty important information for understanding what’s going on. In order to study, say, a… Continue reading ‘Quantum Memory’ Proves Exponentially Powerful
Nope—It’s Never Aliens
I grew up believing in UFOs. I watched every TV show about aliens, spaceships, and aliens in spaceships. I voraciously read magazines and books on the topic, credulously soaking up everything I saw and believing it wholeheartedly because, after all, if someone published a book saying these things are real, they must be real, right?… Continue reading Nope—It’s Never Aliens
How the Human Brain Contends With the Strangeness of Zero
At first, zero caused confusion. “Its ability to represent ‘nothing’ and enable complex mathematical operations challenged deeply ingrained theological and philosophical ideas,” Nieder said. Particularly due to the influence of the church, philosophers and theologians associated “nothing” with chaos and disorder and were disinclined to accept it. Many even feared it, considering it “the devil’s… Continue reading How the Human Brain Contends With the Strangeness of Zero
Meet the First U.S. Species to Go Extinct from Sea-Level Rise
Meet the First U.S. Species to Go Extinct from Sea-Level Rise A tall cactus found only in Florida’s Key Largo is the U.S.’s first species to go extinct from sea-level rise By Ayurella Horn-Muller & Grist The Key Largo tree cactus was initially found growing in the United States in 1992 at a single site.… Continue reading Meet the First U.S. Species to Go Extinct from Sea-Level Rise
Bizarre Mineral Clumps Make ‘Dark Oxygen’ on Deep Seafloor
The dark seabed of the Pacific Ocean’s Clarion-Clipperton Zone (CCZ) is littered with what look like hunks of charcoal. These unassuming metal deposits, called polymetallic nodules, contain metals such as manganese and cobalt used to produce batteries, marking them as targets for deep-sea mining companies. Now researchers have discovered that the valuable nodules do something… Continue reading Bizarre Mineral Clumps Make ‘Dark Oxygen’ on Deep Seafloor
Kamala Harris’s Record on Abortion Rights Shows Strong Support
Throughout Joe Biden’s presidency, he leaned on the outspoken former prosecutor and senator he selected as his vice president, Kamala Harris, to be the White House’s voice of unflinching support for reproductive health rights. Now, as Democrats rebuild their presidential ticket just a few months before Election Day, Harris would widely be expected to take… Continue reading Kamala Harris’s Record on Abortion Rights Shows Strong Support
The ‘Beautiful Confusion’ of the First Billion Years Comes Into View
Susan Kassin, an astronomer at the Space Telescope Science Institute, showed images from previous observatories compared to JWST’s. It was like having the optometrist flip a lens so that the last lines on an eye chart come into focus. “Thank you, Webb — it’s a $10 billion difference,” she said. People chuckled and nodded. JWST… Continue reading The ‘Beautiful Confusion’ of the First Billion Years Comes Into View
How Can Math Help Beat Cancer?
When we think about medicine’s war on cancer, treatments such as surgery, radiation and chemotherapy spring to mind first. Now there is another potential weapon for defeating tumors: statistics and mathematical models that can optimize the selection, combination or timing of treatment. Building and feeding these models requires accounting for the complexity of the body,… Continue reading How Can Math Help Beat Cancer?
Even a Single Bacterial Cell Can Sense the Seasons Changing
Every year, in latitudes far enough north or south, a huge swath of life on Earth senses that winter is coming. Leaves fall from trees, sparrows fly to the tropics, raccoons grow thick winter coats, and we unpack our sweaters from storage. Now scientists have shown that this ability to anticipate shorter days and colder… Continue reading Even a Single Bacterial Cell Can Sense the Seasons Changing