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Illustration of pentagon tiling
Quantized Academy

The (Math) Problem With Pentagons

By Patrick Honner
December 11, 2017
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Triangles fit effortlessly together, as do squares. When it comes to pentagons, what gives?

Traveling person with a luggage filled with bacteria
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What Bacteria Can Tell Us About Human Evolution

By Tara C. Smith
December 5, 2017
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To discover our species’ deep history and to shape its future health, we should learn from the microbes that accompanied us on our evolutionary journey.

White stick figures incased in blue teardrops surround other stick figures on a blue background. They are surrounded by stick figures on a red background.
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The Unforgiving Math That Stops Epidemics

By Tara C. Smith
October 26, 2017
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If you didn’t get a flu shot, you are endangering more than just your own health. Calculations of herd immunity against common diseases don’t make exceptions.

Gerrymandering illustration by Scott Martin for Quanta Magazine
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The Math Behind Gerrymandering and Wasted Votes

By Patrick Honner
October 12, 2017
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Simple math can help scheming politicians manipulate district maps and cruise to victory. But it can also help identify and fix the problem.

Neuron drawings by Santiago Ramón y Cajal
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Why the First Drawings of Neurons Were Defaced

By R. Douglas Fields
September 28, 2017
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Every exquisite drawing by Santiago Ramón y Cajal, the founder of modern neuroscience, is marred by a curious mark. Here is the little-known story behind it.

Emergent reductionism flower
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To Solve the Biggest Mystery in Physics, Join Two Kinds of Law

By Robbert Dijkgraaf
September 7, 2017
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Reductionism breaks the world into elementary building blocks. Emergence finds the simple laws that arise out of complexity. These two complementary ways of viewing the universe come together in modern theories of quantum gravity.

fidget spinners
Quantized Academy

Symmetry, Algebra and the Monster

By Patrick Honner
August 17, 2017
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To begin to understand what mathematicians and physicists see in the abstract structures of symmetries, let’s start with a familiar shape.

Maryam Mirzakhani
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The Beautiful Mathematical Explorations of Maryam Mirzakhani

By Moira Chas
July 24, 2017
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After her untimely death, Maryam Mirzakhani’s life is best remembered through her work.

Illustration: diver searching for new math
Quantized Columns

Quantum Questions Inspire New Math

By Robbert Dijkgraaf
March 30, 2017
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In order to fully understand the quantum world, we may have to develop a new realm of mathematics.


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