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Will We Ever Get Rid of COVID-19?
No matter how much we’d like to eradicate SARS-CoV-2, it may be better to settle for other forms of control.
Wildfires of Varying Intensity Can Be Good for Biodiversity
The spate of furious wildfires around the world during the past decade has revealed to ecologists how much biodiversity and “pyrodiversity” go hand in hand.
Why e, the Transcendental Math Constant, Is Just the Best
The solution to our puzzle about Euler’s number explains why e pops up in situations that involve optimality.
Researchers Defeat Randomness to Create Ideal Code
By carefully constructing a multidimensional and well-connected graph, a team of researchers has finally created a long-sought locally testable code that can immediately betray whether it’s been corrupted.
At the Dawn of Life, Heat May Have Driven Cell Division
A mathematical model shows how a thermodynamic mechanism could have made protocells split in two.
The Algorithm That Lets Particle Physicists Count Higher Than Two
Through his encyclopedic study of the electron, an obscure figure named Stefano Laporta found a handle on the subatomic world’s fearsome complexity. His algorithm has swept the field.
What Hot Dogs Can Teach Us About Number Theory
The Chinese remainder theorem is an ancient and powerful extension of the simple math of least common multiples.
The Mathematician Who Delights in Building Bridges
Ana Caraiani seeks to unify mathematics through her work on the ambitious Langlands program.
How Quantum Computers Will Correct Their Errors
Quantum bits are fussy and fragile. Useful quantum computers will need to use an error-correction technique like the one that was recently demonstrated on a real machine.