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Helen Quinn: A Wormhole Between Physics and Education
Helen Quinn has blazed a singular path from the early days of the Standard Model to the latest overhaul of science education in the United States.
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Pencils Down: Mike Zitolo of School of the Future
Pencils Down: Soni Midha of East Side Community High School
Pencils Down: Channa Comer of Baychester Middle School
Pencils Down: Aaron Mathieu of Acton-Boxborough Regional High School
Pencils Down: Channa Comer Teaching About Scientific Controls
Pencils Down: The Art of Teaching Math and Science
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The Computer Scientist Taking on Big Tech: Privacy, Lies and AI
Narayanan discusses his work on de-anonymization and fairness and why it
matters.
Could One Physics Theory Unlock the Mysteries of the Brain?
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.
2022’s Biggest Breakthroughs in Math
In 2022, mathematicians solved a centuries-old geometry question, proved the best way to minimize the surface area of clusters of up to five bubbles and proved a sweeping statement about how structure emerges in random sets and graphs.
Wormhole in the Lab
Wormholes were first envisioned almost a century ago, but it would take a number of theoretical leaps and a “crazy” team of experimentalists to build one on a quantum computer.
The High Schooler Who Solved a Prime Number Theorem
Daniel Larsen wouldn’t let go of an old question about Carmichael numbers. “It was just stubbornness on my part,” he said.
One Man’s Mission to Unveil Math’s Beauty
Richard Rusczyk, founder of Art of Problem Solving, discusses how to bring out the joy, creativity and beauty in math.
How Two Physicists Unlocked the Secrets of Two Dimensions
Condensed matter physics is the most active field of contemporary physics and has yielded some of the biggest breakthroughs of the past century. Now for the first time, Jie Shan and Fai Mak, a husband-and-wife team at Cornell University, have figured out a way to create artificial atoms in the lab, opening the door to a new era in research.
The Deep Mystery at the Heart of Life on Earth
As an evolutionary biochemist at University College London, Nick Lane explores the deep mystery of how life evolved on Earth. His hypothesis that life started with primitive metabolic reactions in deep-sea hydrothermal vents illuminates the outsized role that energy may have played in shaping evolution.
The Biggest Project in Modern Mathematics
Rutgers University mathematician Alex Kontorovich takes us on a journey through the continents of mathematics to learn about the awe-inspiring symmetries at the heart of the Langlands program.