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Demers, a woman with gray hair, stands in front of a window, leaning against a desk, looking out of frame.

Karen Dias for Quanta Magazine

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In an Age of AI, a Physicist Seeks What Endures

Sarah Demers, chair of the physics department at Yale University, sees the potential for large language models to both help and harm her field.

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Genome Duplication Is a Radical Evolutionary Gamble

By doubling their entire genome, organisms can evolve extremely rapidly — or they can lose it all. New studies reveal how to survive the high-risk, high-reward evolutionary event.

Does Computer Science Need Computers?

The theoretical side of the field doesn’t require computing machines. But many questions would never have been posed without them.

In Hilbert Space, All Things Are Quantumly Possible

To explore quantum phenomena, we must leave the familiar world and enter the abstract realm of Hilbert space.

‘Huge Breakthrough’ in the Math of Imbalance

For the first time in 30 years, computer scientists have found a better way to allocate objects evenly between two groups.

Building a Quantum Computer, One Fragile Qubit at a Time

No one yet knows which technology will power the quantum computers of the future, but the race to create them has already produced some of science’s most intricate machinery.

Theory of Fluids Enters the 21st Century

From the 1800s to the early 2000s, physicists used the same theory to understand the behavior of fluids. Now, using a modern insight, they have redefined fluids from the bottom up.

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The 17-Year-Old Student Who Solved a Major Math Mystery

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Quanta Podcast


A New Framework for How the Brain Compresses Our Noisy World

An updated view of categorization reflects the modern understanding that the nervous system is more of a prediction engine than a filing cabinet.

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How Can Infinity Come in Many Sizes?

Intuition breaks down once we’re dealing with the endless. To begin with: Some infinities are bigger than others.

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Illuminating basic science and math research through public service journalism.

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