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How to Make the Universe Think for Us
Physicists are building neural networks out of vibrations, voltages and lasers, arguing that the future of computing lies in exploiting the universe’s complex physical behaviors.
The Secret Math Behind Mind-Reading Magic Tricks
Four puzzle solutions reveal different ways to divine someone’s hidden number with impossibly little information.
Physicists Rewrite the Fundamental Law That Leads to Disorder
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.
Why Claude Shannon Would Have Been Great at Wordle
A bit of information theory can help you analyze — and improve — your Wordle game.
Life’s First Peptides May Have Grown on RNA Strands
RNA and peptides coevolving in the primordial world might have jointly served as a precursor to the modern ribosome.
How Computer Scientists Learned to Reinvent the Proof
Why verify every line of a proof, when just a few checks will do?
Simple Gene Circuits Hint at How Stem Cells Find New Identities
Synthetic biology experiments suggest a “MultiFate” model for how genetically identical cells become the many different types found in complex organisms like us.
Will the James Webb Space Telescope Reveal Another Earth?
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.
How Complex Is a Knot? New Proof Reveals Ranking System That Works.
“Ribbon concordance” will let mathematicians compare knots by linking them across four-dimensional space.