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The Two Faces of Space-Time
A mysterious phenomenon known as duality often leads to new discoveries in physics. This time, space-time itself can sometimes be two things at once.
How ‘Embeddings’ Encode What Words Mean — Sort Of
Machines work with words by embedding their relationships with other words in a string of numbers.
How the Higgs Field (Actually) Gives Mass to Elementary Particles
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.
How Our Longest Nerve Orchestrates the Mind-Body Connection
Like a highway system, the vagus nerve branches profusely from your brain through your organs to marshal bodily functions, including aspects of mind such as mood, pleasure and fear.
How Colorful Ribbon Diagrams Became the Face of Proteins
Proteins are often visualized as cascades of curled ribbons and twisted strings, which both reveal and conceal the mess of atoms that make up these impossibly complex molecules.
The Geometric Tool That Solved Einstein’s Relativity Problem
Tensors are used all over math and science to reveal hidden geometric truths. What are they?
How Base 3 Computing Beats Binary
Long explored but infrequently embraced, base 3 computing may yet find a home in cybersecurity.
What Is Analog Computing?
You don’t need 0s and 1s to perform computations, and in some cases it’s better to avoid them.
What Happens in a Mind That Can’t ‘See’ Mental Images
Neuroscience research into people with aphantasia, who don’t experience mental imagery, is revealing how imagination works and demonstrating the sweeping variety in our subjective experiences.