Q&A – Quanta Magazine https://www.quantamagazine.org Illuminating science Fri, 21 Feb 2025 21:18:44 -0500 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.6.2 The Physicist Decoding the Nonbinary Nature of the Subatomic World https://www.quantamagazine.org/the-physicist-decoding-the-nonbinary-nature-of-the-subatomic-world-20250110/ https://www.quantamagazine.org/the-physicist-decoding-the-nonbinary-nature-of-the-subatomic-world-20250110/#respond Fri, 10 Jan 2025 15:40:18 +0000 https://www.quantamagazine.org/?p=145493 The post The Physicist Decoding the Nonbinary Nature of the Subatomic World first appeared on Quanta Magazine

]]> Many discoveries in physics flow from theory to experiment. Albert Einstein theorized that mass bends the fabric of space-time, and then Arthur Eddington observed the effects of this bending during a solar eclipse. Likewise, Peter Higgs first proposed the existence of the Higgs boson; nearly 50 years later, the particle was discovered at the Large Hadron Collider. Hadronization is different. It’…

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]]> https://www.quantamagazine.org/the-physicist-decoding-the-nonbinary-nature-of-the-subatomic-world-20250110/feed/ 0 Mathematical Thinking Isn’t What You Think It Is https://www.quantamagazine.org/mathematical-thinking-isnt-what-you-think-it-is-20241118/ https://www.quantamagazine.org/mathematical-thinking-isnt-what-you-think-it-is-20241118/#respond Mon, 18 Nov 2024 14:41:24 +0000 https://www.quantamagazine.org/?p=144195 The post Mathematical Thinking Isn’t What You Think It Is first appeared on Quanta Magazine

]]> David Bessis was drawn to mathematics for the same reason that many people are driven away: He didn’t understand how it worked. Unlike other creative processes, like making music, which can be heard, or painting pictures, which can be seen, math is for the most part an internal process, hidden from view. “It sounded a bit magical. I was intrigued,” he said. His curiosity eventually led him to…

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]]> https://www.quantamagazine.org/mathematical-thinking-isnt-what-you-think-it-is-20241118/feed/ 0 He’s Gleaning the Design Rules of Life to Re-Create It https://www.quantamagazine.org/hes-gleaning-the-design-rules-of-life-to-re-create-it-20241104/ https://www.quantamagazine.org/hes-gleaning-the-design-rules-of-life-to-re-create-it-20241104/#respond Mon, 04 Nov 2024 15:19:46 +0000 https://www.quantamagazine.org/?p=143501 The post He’s Gleaning the Design Rules of Life to Re-Create It first appeared on Quanta Magazine

]]> Say you live in an old house, and you want to make a slew of renovations; at some point, the most efficient way forward is to build a new house altogether. A similar clean-slate approach is the guiding principle behind an international effort to create the world’s first synthetic eukaryotic genome — the set of molecular instructions that govern complex life on Earth, including humans. At present…

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]]> https://www.quantamagazine.org/hes-gleaning-the-design-rules-of-life-to-re-create-it-20241104/feed/ 0 The Computer Scientist Who Builds Big Pictures From Small Details https://www.quantamagazine.org/the-computer-scientist-who-builds-big-pictures-from-small-details-20241007/ https://www.quantamagazine.org/the-computer-scientist-who-builds-big-pictures-from-small-details-20241007/#respond Mon, 07 Oct 2024 13:36:33 +0000 https://www.quantamagazine.org/?p=142178 The post The Computer Scientist Who Builds Big Pictures From Small Details first appeared on Quanta Magazine

]]> As a teenager in the Czech Republic, Lenka Zdeborová glimpsed her future in an Isaac Asimov novel. A character in Asimov’s “Foundation” series invents a mathematical method for predicting the path of an entire civilization by averaging out the haphazard behavior of billions of individuals. The concept gave her a “mesmerizing feeling,” Zdeborová recalls — one that returned when she later…

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]]> https://www.quantamagazine.org/the-computer-scientist-who-builds-big-pictures-from-small-details-20241007/feed/ 0 Can Space-Time Be Saved? https://www.quantamagazine.org/can-space-time-be-saved-20240925/ https://www.quantamagazine.org/can-space-time-be-saved-20240925/#respond Wed, 25 Sep 2024 16:08:44 +0000 https://www.quantamagazine.org/?p=140815 The post Can Space-Time Be Saved? first appeared on Quanta Magazine

]]> Most of today’s leading theoretical physicists have a shared perspective about what the next revolution in physics will look like. They think reconciling Albert Einstein’s general theory of relativity with quantum mechanics will require transcending the notion of space-time. Einstein’s theory attributes the force of gravity to curves in the space-time fabric, but beneath this fabric they hope to…

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