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Close-up portrait of a man reaching for something in a laboratory.

Searching for Dark Matter with a Tabletop ‘Quantum Compass’

The physicist Alex Sushkov has developed one of the most targeted magnetic resonance experiments to date with the aim of detecting a hypothetical dark matter particle called the axion.


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Math’s Famous Map Problem: The Four-Color Theorem

August 8, 2023

David Richeson discusses the history and significance of the four color theorem.

The Cryptographer Working to Protect Computations

July 27, 2023

Kalai discusses the meaning of cryptography and how essential it is to our daily lives.

A Bet Against Quantum Gravity

July 10, 2023

Oppenheim describes why he thinks gravity can’t be squeezed into the same quantum box as the other fundamental forces — and what he’s proposing as an alternative.

Can a New Law of Physics Explain a Black Hole Paradox?

June 6, 2023

Leonard Susskind and collaborators set out to understand why black hole interiors grow forever. They ended up proposing a new law of physics.

The Digital Quest for Quantum Gravity

May 25, 2023

Renate Loll describes her theory of causal dynamical triangulations and how it might unlock certain aspects of quantum gravity.

How a Computer Broke a 50-Year Math Record

May 22, 2023

DeepMind researchers trained an AI system called AlphaTensor to find new, faster algorithms for matrix multiplication. AlphaTensor quickly rediscovered — and surpassed, for some cases — the reigning algorithm discovered by German mathematician Volker Strassen in 1969.

She Tracks Wildlife eDNA on Everest and in the Andes

April 17, 2023

Tracie Seimon of the WCS’s Molecular Diagnostics Laboratory describes her biodiversity research, which is based on eDNA — DNA collected from the environment.

The Computer Scientist Taking on Big Tech: Privacy, Lies and AI

March 10, 2023

Narayanan discusses his work on de-anonymization and fairness and why it
matters.

Could One Physics Theory Unlock the Mysteries of the Brain?

January 31, 2023

The phenomenon of criticality can explain the sudden emergence of new properties in a wide range of complex systems, from avalanches to flocks of birds to stock market crashes. Neuroscientists are now seeking evidence that criticality is at work in the brain’s networks of neurons.