Maggie Miller explains why our intuition about three dimensions breaks down in four, and how she visualizes 4D spaces as a reel of three-dimensional snapshots.
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How Does Life Unfold? A Landscape Metaphor Comes Into Its Own.
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C.H. Waddington’s powerful image of embryonic stem cells specializing on a rolling landscape has captivated biologists since the 1950s. Experimental data is finally confirming, and complicating, his visionary ideas.
As AI Closed In on ‘Unique Games’ Proof, Researchers Raced to Beat the Machines
In the shadow of a rumored AI proof of one of the biggest problems in their field, three computer scientists rushed to publish their own milestone result.
Is AI the End of Math As We Know It?
Mathematicians are facing the sudden shift with grief, anger, and a desperate search for fresh ideas: “If we don’t adapt, there’s just no more math in 50 years.”
Sea Monkeys Show Scientists How To Rewrite a Rule of Turbulence
Scientists assumed that energy flows in only one direction in a turbulent system. What they didn’t know, until they looked closely at brine shrimp, was that a simple factor can reverse the flow.
Surprisingly Complex Waves Reveal the Brain’s Inner Workings
Unexpected patterns traveling across the human brain may be reorganizing its activity in real time.
Gravity Seems Holographic. What Does That Mean for Reality?
The biggest breakthrough in modern theoretical physics is the discovery that gravity can collapse the dimensions of space. Physicists don’t yet understand the implications.
Biology Might Not Be Quantum, but Its Math Is Quantumlike
Scientists have a history of trying — and failing — to link biology and quantum mechanics. The real connection between them may be in the math.
How Virus-like ‘Jumping Genes’ Became Our Partners in Evolution
Half of our genome is made of transposons — snips of DNA that can move and copy themselves. But they’re more than parasites or genetic junk.
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Illuminating basic science and math research through public service journalism.
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