Quanta Magazine | Science and Math News

Valerie Plesch for Quanta Magazine

Latest Articles

At 17, Hannah Cairo Solved a Major Math Mystery

After finding the homeschooling life confining, the teen petitioned her way into a graduate class at Berkeley, where she ended up disproving a 40-year-old conjecture.

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What Can a Cell Remember?

A small but enthusiastic group of neuroscientists is exhuming overlooked experiments and performing new ones to explore whether cells record past experiences — fundamentally challenging what memory is.

Q&A

Why the Key to a Mathematical Life is Collaboration

Fan Chung, who has an Erdős number of 1, discusses the importance of connection — both human and mathematical.

Quantum Scientists Have Built a New Math of Cryptography

In theory, quantum physics can bypass the hard mathematical problems at the root of modern encryption. A new proof shows how.

The Cells That Breathe Two Ways

In a hot spring at Yellowstone National Park, a microbe does something that life shouldn’t be able to do: It breathes oxygen and sulfur at the same time.

Illustration of a man holding a laptop while standing in the middle of a complicated optics experiment. Green laser beams fly around every which way.

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Mirror Molecules: The Symmetry Rule Life Never Breaks

Emily Buder/Quanta Magazine

Special Features

The Joy of Why


00:00 / 52:09

In this episode of The Joy of Why, Thomas Hertog discusses his collaboration with Stephen Hawking on a provocative theory arguing that the laws of physics evolved with the universe, and how this could have shaped a cosmos fit for life.

Multimedia


How Can AI ID a Cat? An Illustrated Guide.

Neural networks power today’s AI boom. To understand them, all we need is a map, a cat and a few thousand dimensions.

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Illuminating basic science and math research through public service journalism.

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Quanta Magazine is committed to in-depth, accurate journalism that serves the public interest. Each article braids the complexities of science with the malleable art of storytelling and is meticulously reported, edited and fact-checked. Launched and funded by the Simons Foundation, Quanta is editorially independent — our articles do not reflect or represent the views of the foundation.

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