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How to Turn a Quantum Computer Into the Ultimate Randomness Generator
Pure, verifiable randomness is hard to come by. Two proposals show how to make quantum computers into randomness factories.
A New Law to Describe Quantum Computing’s Rise?
Neven’s law states that quantum computers are improving at a “doubly exponential” rate. If it holds, quantum supremacy is around the corner.
A 53-Year-Old Network Coloring Conjecture Is Disproved
In just three pages, a Russian mathematician has presented a better way to color certain types of networks than many experts thought possible.
A Mathematician Whose Only Constant Is Change
Amie Wilkinson searches for exotic examples of the mathematical structures that describe change.
Bacterial Complexity Revises Ideas About ‘Which Came First?’
Contrary to popular belief, bacteria have organelles too. Scientists are now studying them for insights into how complex cells evolved.
A Close Look at Newborn Planets Reveals Hints of Infant Moons
Astronomers have discovered a complex planetary system still swirling into existence.
Do Brains Operate at a Tipping Point? New Clues and Complications
New experimental results simultaneously advance and challenge the theory that the brain’s network of neurons balances on the knife-edge between two phases.
Physicists Debate Hawking’s Idea That the Universe Had No Beginning
A recent challenge to Stephen Hawking’s biggest idea — about how the universe might have come from nothing — has cosmologists choosing sides.
Quantum Leaps, Long Assumed to Be Instantaneous, Take Time
An experiment caught a quantum system in the middle of a jump — something the originators of quantum mechanics assumed was impossible.