The mathematical physicist Robbert Dijkgraaf and host Steven Strogatz discuss the frontiers of string theory and why space and time might not be the most fundamental things in the universe.
Olena Shmahalo/Quanta Magazine
By chewing on the problems posed by “extremal” black holes, physicists have exposed a surprising and universal connection between energy and entropy.
Neuroscientists could use brain waves to spur immune cells into action against the disease — but the process is almost too fantastic to believe.
Collider physicists report that several measurements of particles called B mesons deviate from predictions. Alone, each oddity looks like a fluke, but their collective drift is more suggestive.
Studies of collective behavior usually focus on how crowds of organisms coordinate their actions. But what if the individuals that don’t participate have just as much to tell us?
After translating some of math’s complicated equations, researchers have created an AI system that they hope will answer even bigger questions.
The mathematical physicist Robbert Dijkgraaf and host Steven Strogatz discuss the frontiers of string theory and why space and time might not be the most fundamental things in the universe.
A lizard that both lays eggs and gives birth to live young is helping scientists understand how and why these forms of reproduction evolved.
Vesselin Dimitrov’s proof of the Schinzel-Zassenhaus conjecture quantifies the way special values of polynomials push each other apart.
Newly discovered worlds of microbes far beneath the ocean floor, inside old basaltic rocks, could point to a greater likelihood of life elsewhere in the universe.
Readers poked holes in our paradoxical April Fools’ Day claims about perpetual energy and whether this puzzle solution would ever be published.
Researchers struggle to incorporate ongoing evolutionary discoveries into an animal classification scheme older than Darwin.
The human mind has long grappled with the elusive nature of time: what it is, how to record it, how it regulates life, and whether it exists as a fundamental building block of the universe.
Quanta Magazine is committed to in-depth, accurate journalism that serves the public interest. Each article braids the complexities of science with the malleable art of storytelling and is meticulously reported, edited and fact-checked. Launched and funded by the Simons Foundation, Quanta is editorially independent — our articles do not reflect or represent the views of the foundation.
