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How Selective Forgetting Can Help AI Learn Better
Erasing key information during training results in machine learning models that can learn new languages faster and more easily.
‘Entropy Bagels’ and Other Complex Structures Emerge From Simple Rules
Simple rules in simple settings continue to puzzle mathematicians, even as they devise intricate tools to analyze them.
A Quantum Trick Implied Eternal Stability. Now the Idea May Be Falling Apart.
A series of advances seemed to promise the impossible: the existence of quantum states that would never, ever fall into disarray. But physicists are now discovering that the pull of disorder may not be so easily overcome.
Never-Repeating Tiles Can Safeguard Quantum Information
Two researchers have proved that Penrose tilings, famous patterns that never repeat, are mathematically equivalent to a kind of quantum error correction.
A New Agenda for Low-Dimensional Topology
This past October, dozens of mathematicians gathered in Pasadena to create the third version of “Kirby’s list” — a compendium of the most important unsolved problems in the field.
A Multitalented Scientist Seeks the Origins of Multicellularity
The pathbreaking geneticist Cassandra Extavour pursues the secrets of multicellular life while balancing careers in both science and singing.
Inside Scientists’ Life-Saving Prediction of the Iceland Eruption
The Reykjanes Peninsula has entered a new volcanic era. Innovative efforts to map and monitor the subterranean magma are saving lives.
Quanta Relaunches Hyperjumps Math Game
Explore a universe of numbers and arithmetic in our new and improved interactive math game, Hyperjumps!
