Abstractions blog

The zoo of spontaneously emerging particlelike entities known as quasiparticles has grown quickly and become more and more exotic. Here are a few of the most curious and potentially useful examples.

A recent paper set the fastest record for multiplying two matrices. But it also marks the end of the line for a method researchers have relied on for decades to make improvements.

A supernova-like explosion dubbed the Camel appears to be the result of a newborn black hole eating a star from the inside out.

A new thought experiment indicates that quantum mechanics doesn’t work without strange numbers that turn negative when squared.

An overlooked but powerful driver of cloud formation could accelerate the loss of polar sea ice.

One black hole is nice, but astrophysicists can do a lot more science with 50 of them.

A new study shows that extreme black holes could break the famous “no-hair” theorem, and in a way that we could detect.

A group of MIT undergraduates is searching for tetrahedra that tile space, the latest effort in a millennia-long inquiry. They’ve already made a new discovery.

Unusual proteins that can quickly fold into different shapes provide cells with a novel regulatory mechanism.