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What Can We Gain by Losing Infinity?
...where physics and math must branch off from each other. It is no requirement that math and physics describe the same things (though many believe it is), and infinity might...
Why Do Humanoid Robots Still Struggle With the Small Stuff?
...equations to model the (simplified) physics of the robot. Now they train neural networks to act as “whole-body controllers” by running countless digital simulations of the humanoid. This process teaches...
Will Better Superconductors Transform the World?
...would win Kamerlingh Onnes the 1913 Nobel Prize in Physics. [Theme ends] But more importantly, it marked the start of an unresolved quest for material that maintains perfect conductivity at...
![Colorful illustration in which a sphere divided into four quadrants is surrounded by spheres divided into halves and thirds.]](https://www.quantamagazine.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/TETRAQUARK_520x292.jpg)
‘Impossible’ Particle Discovery Adds Key Piece to the Strong Force Puzzle
...meeting of Syracuse University’s quark physics group, Ivan Polyakov announced that he had uncovered the fingerprints of a semi-mythical particle. “We said, ‘This is impossible. What mistake are you making?’”...
Did the Chicken Come First or Is It Turtles All the Way Down?
The apparent paradox of the chicken and the egg smells like “turtles all the way down.” This puzzle shows how biology and physics can overcome infinite regress. When you consider...
A New Map of All the Particles and Forces
...interactions. Together, the equations formed a succinct theory now known as the Standard Model of particle physics. The Standard Model is missing a few puzzle pieces (conspicuously absent are the...
A New Complexity Theory for the Quantum Age
...computer science — physics I just found conceptually interesting, computer science because of my high school interest in video game design. I quickly dropped physics because I was very bad...
Scant Evidence of Power Laws Found in Real-World Networks
...that earned Kenneth Wilson the 1982 Nobel Prize in physics. Soon after, power laws formed the core of two other paradigms that swept across the statistical physics world: fractals, and...
For His Sporting Approach to Math, a Fields Medal
...had a hard time finding that with physics.” He ended up focusing on an area of math that hewed very close to physics and was motivated almost entirely by physical...