Tag: Quantum Stuff

After years of being encouraged to choose a job I love so I’ll never work a day in my life, I figured I had found my ticket: science. Like many academics, I identify with my work. I pursued a Ph.D. largely because I’ve always thought of myself as curious and enthusiastic about nature, particularly the… Continue reading We’re Killing Ourselves with Work

1972 Surprise: Mars Volcano “Mars continues to surprise the investigators associated with Mariner 9, which has been in orbit around the planet since November 13. Perhaps the most spectacular feature is a volcanic cone at least 300 miles in diameter at the base, making it larger than any comparable feature on the earth. Close-ups of… Continue reading 50, 100 & 150 Years Ago: March 2022

I botched my first interview with Chris Fuchs. Fuchs is a physicist at the University of Massachusetts Boston and the leading proponent of QBism, one of the newest and most controversial of quantum theory’s many interpretations. It goes something like this: Quantum mechanics, the theory physicists use to predict the behavior of elementary particles like… Continue reading My Quantum Leap

Credit: NASAAdvertisement MEXICO Small freshwater fish called sulfur mollies synchronously splash their tails to create waves, and scientists have now demonstrated that this strategy can deter hungry birds. Researchers triggered the wave-making process using slingshots and found that birds waited twice as long between attacks. CHILE An investigation of sedimentary rock cores revealed that a… Continue reading Science News Briefs from around the World: March 2022

Today’s most successful artificial intelligence algorithms, artificial neural networks, are loosely based on the intricate webs of real neural networks in our brains. But unlike our highly efficient brains, running these algorithms on computers guzzles shocking amounts of energy: The biggest models consume nearly as much power as five cars over their lifetimes. Enter neuromorphic… Continue reading AI Overcomes Stumbling Block on Brain-Inspired Hardware

What started in 1989 as an e-mail list for a few dozen string theorists has now grown to a collection of more than two million papers—and the central hub for physicists, astronomers, computer scientists, mathematicians and other researchers.On January 3 the preprint server arXiv.org crossed the milestone with a numerical analysis paper entitled “Affine Iterations… Continue reading ArXiv.org Reaches a Milestone and a Reckoning

In most two-player games, it is generally better to win the toss and go first. And if you are sharing a pizza with someone and want to have a larger portion, it’s usually better to grab the first slice and pick a really large one. But there are situations in which it might be better… Continue reading Play First and Lose: Zugzwang in Chess, Math and Pizzas

They appear, at first, like so many toy tops spinning around a petri dish, etching squiggly patterns on the plate as if it were an ice rink. But soon enough, their work makes you realize that these tiny dervishes are, unmistakably, alive. You are in the presence of xenobots, which a few years ago made… Continue reading The Uncanny Valley of Xenobots

During a solar eclipse in 1919, Arthur Eddington observed light bending around the sun just as predicted by general relativity, Albert Einstein’s new theory of gravity. Since then, general relativity, which says that massive objects like stars warp the fabric of space-time around them, has passed increasingly precise tests. A year rarely goes by without… Continue reading In Search of Cracks in Albert Einstein’s Theory of Gravity

From the bizarre creatures in the depths of the oceans to the bacteria inside our bodies, all life on Earth consists of cells. But we have only a very rough idea of how even the simplest of those cells function. Now, as described recently in Cell, a team at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign and… Continue reading Most Complete Simulation of a Cell Probes Life’s Hidden Rules