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The Two Faces of Space-Time

September 25, 2024

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

September 18, 2024

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

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.

How Our Longest Nerve Orchestrates the Mind-Body Connection

August 26, 2024

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

August 23, 2024

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

August 12, 2024

Tensors are used all over math and science to reveal hidden geometric truths. What are they?

How Base 3 Computing Beats Binary

August 9, 2024

Long explored but infrequently embraced, base 3 computing may yet find a home in cybersecurity.

What Is Analog Computing?

August 2, 2024

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

August 1, 2024

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.

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