Maggie Chiang for Quanta Magazine
The second law of thermodynamics is among the most sacred in all of science, but it has always rested on 19th century arguments about probability. New arguments trace its true source to the flows of quantum information.
A bit of information theory can help you analyze — and improve — your Wordle game.
RNA and peptides coevolving in the primordial world might have jointly served as a precursor to the modern ribosome.
Why verify every line of a proof, when just a few checks will do?
“Ribbon concordance” will let mathematicians compare knots by linking them across four-dimensional space.
Leslie Lamport revolutionized how computers talk to each other. Now he’s working on how engineers talk to their machines.
By resolving a paradox about light in a box, researchers hope to clarify the concept of energy in quantum theory.
In 2019, the Event Horizon Telescope released a historic image of a supermassive black hole in another galaxy. The follow-up — an image of Sagittarius A* — shows it shimmering at the center of our own.
The space telescope is one of the most ambitious scientific projects ever undertaken. Marcia Rieke and Nikole Lewis, two of the scientists leading JWST investigations, talk to Steven Strogatz about how it may transform our understanding of the universe.
Explore our surprisingly simple, absurdly ambitious and necessarily incomplete guide to the boundless mathematical 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.
