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How to Hang Far Out Over the Edge
In last month’s Insights puzzle and in my recent Abstractions blog posts, I dissected what we might call “over-projection” in election forecasts. This month, I turn to a different kind...
The Math That’s Too Difficult for Physics
...about the emerging connections between Feynman diagrams and number theory that I describe in the recent article “Strange Numbers Found in Particle Collisions.” If mathematicians and physicists can identify patterns...
Viruses Find a New Way to Hijack Cells
...to manufacture thousands of copies of themselves. In recent decades, biologists have gained a clearer picture of just how this heist is pulled off. Many viruses, it turns out, suppress...
On a Hunt for a Ghost of a Particle
...than the three known flavors of neutrino. There are also seven experiments that don’t. Recently, some of the experiments that have not seen an effect have gotten a lot of...
In the Deep, a Drive to Find Dark Matter
...on the more familiar everyday matter. That paradigm has recently been under fire. The Large Hadron Collider located at the CERN laboratory near Geneva has not yet found anything to...
On the Moon’s Far Side, Clues to a Cataclysm?
...has become a cornerstone in our understanding of the early solar system. But recently the existence of the late heavy bombardment has come into doubt. So scientists have proposed a...
Graph Isomorphism Vanquished — Again
...is what computer scientists call “polynomial.” In the lead-up to these recent events, Helfgott had spent months studying the algorithm Babai announced in 2015, to prepare for his Bourbaki seminar....
How Pools of Genetic Diversity Affect a Species’ Fate
...have unique characteristics at the genomic level.” In recent years, biologists have developed a deeper understanding of how the relationship between genetic diversity and population structure can influence the fate...
The Hidden Heroines of Chaos
...math degree from Earlham College, Lorenz had only recently bought and taught himself to use the LGP-30. Hamilton had no prior training in programming either. Then again, neither did anyone...