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Abstractions blog

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Illustration in which a bright red line results from many wavelike ripples overlapping.
explainers

How Our Reality May Be a Sum of All Possible Realities

By Charlie Wood
February 6, 2023
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Richard Feynman’s path integral is both a powerful prediction machine and a philosophy about how the world is. But physicists are still struggling to figure out how to use it, and what it means.

topology

Mathematicians Eliminate Long-Standing Threat to Knot Conjecture

By Leila Sloman
February 2, 2023
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A new proof shows that a knot some thought would contradict the famed slice-ribbon conjecture doesn’t.

Video/image of a metronome whose arm is simultaneously ticking rightward and leftward.
quantum physics

How Quantum Physicists ‘Flipped Time’ (and How They Didn’t)

By Charlie Wood
January 27, 2023
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Two teams have made photons act as if time were simultaneously flowing in two directions. The experiments demonstrate a way to potentially boost the performance of quantum devices.

illustration of four six-sided green dice covered in different numbers, with orange arrows connecting some of the dice
combinatorics

Mathematicians Roll Dice and Get Rock-Paper-Scissors

By Erica Klarreich
January 19, 2023
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Mathematicians have uncovered a surprising wealth of rock-paper-scissors-like patterns in randomly chosen dice.

Illustration of a mother holding an infant, with strands of DNA running between the bacteria inside them.
microbiome

Mobile Genes From the Mother Shape the Baby’s Microbiome

By Yasemin Saplakoglu
January 17, 2023
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Tiny genetic sequences in a mother’s bacteria seem to hop into the infant’s bacteria, perhaps ensuring a healthy microbiome later in life.

Purple illustration of round qubits pointing to rows of blocks that progressively become more chaotic.
quantum computing

New Algorithm Closes Quantum Supremacy Window

By Ben Brubaker
January 9, 2023
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Random circuit sampling, a popular technique for showing the power of quantum computers, doesn’t scale up if errors go unchecked.

Illustration of asteroids in space that are interconnected into a structure like that of the amino acid glycine.
explainers

Inside Ancient Asteroids, Gamma Rays Made Building Blocks of Life

By John Rennie +1 authors
Allison Parshall
January 4, 2023
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A new radiation-based mechanism adds to the ways that amino acids could have been made in space and brought to the young Earth.

quantum computing

After a Quantum Clobbering, One Approach Survives Unscathed

By Allison Parshall
December 7, 2022
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A quantum approach to data analysis that relies on the study of shapes will likely remain an example of a quantum advantage — albeit for increasingly unlikely scenarios.

particle physics

Crucial Computer Program for Particle Physics at Risk of Obsolescence

By Matt von Hippel
December 1, 2022
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Maintenance of the software that’s used for the hardest physics calculations rests almost entirely with a retiree. The situation reveals the problematic incentive structure of academia.


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Abstractions navigates promising ideas in science and mathematics. Journey with us and join the conversation.
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