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explainers
explainers
Neither Star nor Planet: A Strange Brown Dwarf Puzzles Astronomers
Brown dwarfs such as “The Accident” are illuminating the murky borderlands that separate planets from stars.
group theory
Galois Groups and the Symmetries of Polynomials
By focusing on relationships between solutions to polynomial equations, rather than the exact solutions themselves, Évariste Galois changed the course of modern mathematics.
condensed matter physics
The ‘Weirdest’ Matter, Made of Partial Particles, Defies Description
Theorists are in a frenzy over “fractons,” bizarre, but potentially useful, hypothetical particles that can only move in combination with one another.
explainers
How Bell’s Theorem Proved ‘Spooky Action at a Distance’ Is Real
The root of today’s quantum revolution was John Stewart Bell’s 1964 theorem showing that quantum mechanics really permits instantaneous connections between far-apart locations.
Quantized Columns
How ‘Long COVID’ Keeps Us Sick
Other diseases with long-term symptoms can help us understand how COVID can affect us long after the virus itself is gone.
astrophysics
Brighter Than a Billion Billion Suns: Gamma-Ray Bursts Continue to Surprise
These ultrabright flashes have recently been tracked for days, upending ideas about the cataclysms that create them.
explainers
How Animals Color Themselves With Nanoscale Structures
Animals sculpt the optical properties of their tissues at the nanoscale to give themselves “structural colors.” New work is piecing together how they do it.
topology
How Mathematicians Use Homology to Make Sense of Topology
Originally devised as a rigorous means of counting holes, homology provides a scaffolding for mathematical ideas, allowing for a new way to analyze the shapes within data.
quantum gravity
How Gravity Is a Double Copy of Other Forces
An enigmatic connection between the forces of nature is allowing physicists to explore gravity’s quantum side.