Abstractions blog

In computer simulations of possible universes, researchers have discovered that a neural network can infer the amount of matter in a whole universe by studying just one of its galaxies.

For years, intermediate measurements made it hard to quantify the complexity of quantum algorithms. New work establishes that those measurements aren’t necessary after all.

Physicists have been busy exploring how our universe might emerge like a hologram out of a two-dimensional sheet. New clues have come from the symmetries found on an infinitely distant “celestial sphere.”

A surprising new solution to Leonhard Euler’s famous “36 officers puzzle” offers a novel way of encoding quantum information.

A new result shows that quantum information can theoretically be protected from errors just as well as classical information can.

In the 1960s, drillers noticed that certain fluids would firm up if they flowed too fast. Researchers have finally explained why.

Scientists have never been able to adequately explain where lightning comes from. Now the first detailed observations of its emergence inside a cloud have exposed how electric fields grow strong enough to let bolts fly.

The “gravitational memory effect” predicts that a passing gravitational wave should forever alter the structure of space-time. Physicists have linked the phenomenon to fundamental cosmic symmetries and a potential solution to the black hole information paradox.

Tiny amounts of artificial noise can fool neural networks, but not humans. Some researchers are looking to neuroscience for a fix.