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Latest Articles

Black Holes or Black Hole Stars? Astronomers Spar Over Webb Telescope’s ‘Little Red Dots.’

The James Webb Space Telescope spots mysterious “little red dots” everywhere. A bold new theory suggests they’re suns dozens of times larger than our entire solar system.

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Why Do These Fossil Shells Flip Their Spirals Every Few Millennia?

The mystery of the flipping foraminifera may conceal a rarely observed evolutionary process playing out across the planet.

The Four-Color Theorem Gets a Rare New Proof

By revisiting the famous problem — which was controversially solved in the 1970s with the help of computers — mathematicians have gained important new insights into the nature of graphs.

What Is Math’s Mysterious Langlands Program Really About?

Hidden correspondences hint at a deeper structure to the mathematical universe. Our columnist unpacks one of those connections and asks mathematicians what they might mean.

AI Has Solved One of Math’s $1 Million Millennium Prize Problems

Mathematicians at OpenAI showed that the Navier-Stokes equations, which describe how fluids flow, can sometimes “blow up.” But the massive result is not without controversy.

Demers, a woman with gray hair, stands in front of a window, leaning against a desk, looking out of frame.

Genome Duplication Is a Radical Evolutionary Gamble

By doubling their entire genome, organisms can evolve extremely rapidly — or they can lose it all. New studies reveal how to survive the high-risk, high-reward evolutionary event.

Does Computer Science Need Computers?

The theoretical side of the field doesn’t require computing machines. But many questions would never have been posed without them.

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The 17-Year-Old Student Who Solved a Major Math Mystery

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Special Features

The Joy of Why


00:00 / 53:15

In this special live recording from the International Congress of Mathematicians in Philadelphia, July 2026, the central question discussed was what do mathematicians really value about doing mathematics in the first place?

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How Can Infinity Come in Many Sizes?

Intuition breaks down once we’re dealing with the endless. To begin with: Some infinities are bigger than others.

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Illuminating basic science and math research through public service journalism.

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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.

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