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An Infinite Universe of Number Systems
The p-adics form an infinite collection of number systems based on prime numbers. They’re at the heart of modern number theory.
Room-Temperature Superconductivity Claim Falls Apart [Update]
In 2020, researchers reported that they had created a room-temperature superconductor. That paper has now been retracted.
Nobel Chemistry Prize Awarded for CRISPR ‘Genetic Scissors’
Emmanuelle Charpentier and Jennifer Doudna have been awarded the 2020 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for their development of CRISPR/Cas9 genetic editing.
Physics Nobel Awarded for Black Hole Breakthroughs
Roger Penrose, Reinhard Genzel and Andrea Ghez were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics for their studies of black holes.
Scientists Win Nobel Prize for Discovering the Hepatitis C Virus
Harvey Alter, Michael Houghton and Charles Rice were awarded the 2020 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for their discovery of the cause of a major liver disease.
Some Physicists See Signs of Cosmic Strings From the Big Bang
Subtle aberrations in the clockwork blinking of stars could become “the result of the century.” That’s if the distortions are produced by a network of giant filaments left over from the birth of the universe.
Reasons Revealed for the Brain’s Elastic Sense of Time
New research finds that the subjective experience of time is linked to learning, thwarted expectations and neural fatigue.
At the Math Olympiad, Computers Prepare to Go for the Gold
Computer scientists are trying to build an AI system that can win a gold medal at the world’s premier math competition.
How Mathematical ‘Hocus-Pocus’ Saved Particle Physics
Renormalization has become perhaps the single most important advance in theoretical physics in 50 years.