The Vagus Nerve’s Crucial Role in Creating the Human Sense of Mind
The original version of this story appeared in Quanta Magazine. It is late at night. You are alone and wandering empty streets in search of your parked car when you …
quanta magazine
New Evidence Shows Heat Destroys Quantum Entanglement
But not all questions about quantum systems are easier to answer using quantum algorithms. Some are equally easy for classical algorithms, which run on ordinary computers, while others are hard …
Stephen Hawking Was Wrong—Extremal Black Holes Are Possible
Now two mathematicians have proved Hawking and his colleagues wrong. The new work—contained in a pair of recent papers by Christoph Kehle of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Ryan Unger of Stanford University and the University …
The Quantum Mechanics of the Greenhouse Effect
A key question was the origin of the logarithmic scaling of the greenhouse effect—the 2-to-5-degree temperature rise that models predict will happen for every doubling of CO2. One theory held …
The Vacuum of Space Will Decay Sooner Than Expected
The original version of this story appeared in Quanta Magazine. Vacuum decay, a process that could end the universe as we know it, may happen 10,000 times sooner than expected. …
The Physics of Cold Water May Have Jump-Started Complex Life
After 30 days, the algae in the middle were still unicellular. As the scientists put algae from thicker and thicker rings under the microscope, however, they found larger clumps of …
‘Gem’ of a Proof Breaks 80-Year-Old Record, Offers New Insights Into Prime Numbers
The original version of this story appeared in Quanta Magazine. Sometimes mathematicians try to tackle a problem head on, and sometimes they come at it sideways. That’s especially true when …
Uncovering Magnetism’s Mysterious Role in the Galaxy
When were you first drawn to learning about it? I don’t think that was from some deep-seated, lifelong need to study magnetism, but it grabbed me in grad school as …
The Puzzle of How Large-Scale Order Emerges in Complex Systems
A complex system exhibits emergence, according to the new framework, by organizing itself into a hierarchy of levels that each operate independently of the details of the lower levels. The …
Everything You See Is a Computational Process, If You Know How to Look
The original version of this story appeared in Quanta Magazine. In the movie Oppenheimer, Niels Bohr challenges the physicist early in his career: Bohr: Algebra is like sheet music. The important thing …