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How the Higgs Field (Actually) Gives Mass to Elementary Particles

September 3, 2024

In this article adapted from his new book, "Waves in an Impossible Sea," physicist Matt Strassler explains that the origin of mass in the universe has a lot to do with music.

Computation Is All Around Us, and You Can See It if You Try

June 12, 2024

Computer scientist Lance Fortnow writes that by embracing the computations that surround us, we can begin to understand and tame our seemingly random world.

How a NASA Probe Solved a Scorching Solar Mystery

April 29, 2024

The outer layers of the sun’s atmosphere are a blistering million degrees hotter than its surface. The hidden culprit? Magnetic activity.

The New Quest to Control Evolution

November 29, 2023

Modern scientists aren’t content with predicting how life evolves. They want to shape it.

A Brief History of Tricky Mathematical Tiling

October 30, 2023

The discovery earlier this year of the “hat” tile marked the culmination of hundreds of years of work into tiles and their symmetries.

How Genetic Surprises Complicate the Old Doctrine of DNA

July 31, 2023

For over a century, biologists have had to contend with a complicated picture of genetics, which they’ve only recently begun to understand.

What Does It Mean to Align AI With Human Values?

December 13, 2022

Making sure our machines understand the intent behind our instructions is an important problem that requires understanding intelligence itself.

How to Think About Relativity

November 14, 2022

Albert Einstein’s ideas about space-time aren’t exactly intuitive, and they aren’t exactly Einstein’s, either.

How Isaac Newton Discovered the Binomial Power Series

August 31, 2022

Rethinking questions and chasing patterns led Newton to find the connection between curves and infinite sums.

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