Quanta Magazine | Science and Math News
Peggy Peattie for Quanta Magazine
Latest Articles
Improving Deep Learning With a Little Help From Physics
Rose Yu has a plan for how to make AI better, faster and smarter — and it’s already yielding results.
How a Biofilm’s Strange Shape Emerges From Cellular Geometry
Micro decisions can have macro consequences. A soft matter physicist reveals how interactions within simple cellular collectives can lead to emergent physical traits.
New Proof Settles Decades-Old Bet About Connected Networks
According to mathematical legend, Peter Sarnak and Noga Alon made a bet about optimal graphs in the late 1980s. They’ve now both been proved wrong.
Touch, Our Most Complex Sense, Is a Landscape of Cellular Sensors
Every soft caress of wind, searing burn and seismic rumble is detected by our skin’s tangle of touch sensors. David Ginty has spent his career cataloging the neurons beneath everyday sensations.
To Make Language Models Work Better, Researchers Sidestep Language
We insist that large language models repeatedly translate their mathematical processes into words. There may be a better way.
Where Does Meaning Live in a Sentence? Math Might Tell Us.
The mathematician Tai-Danae Bradley is using category theory to try to understand both human and AI-generated language.
Intelligence Evolved at Least Twice in Vertebrate Animals
Complex neural pathways likely arose independently in birds and mammals, suggesting that vertebrates evolved intelligence multiple times.
How a Problem About Pigeons Powers Complexity Theory
When pigeons outnumber pigeonholes, some birds must double up. This obvious statement — and its inverse — have deep connections to many areas of math and computer science.
Featured Videos
See all videos
Why Some People Don’t ‘See’ Mental Imagery: Aphantasia
Christopher W. Young/Quanta Magazine
Special Features
Multimedia
The Thought Experiments That Fray the Fabric of Space-Time
These three imagined scenarios lead many physicists to doubt that space-time is fundamental.
Recommended Features
Quanta Podcast
Exotic New Superconductors Delight and Confound
Three new species of superconductivity were spotted this year, illustrating the myriad ways electrons can join together to form a frictionless quantum soup.
About Quanta Magazine
Illuminating basic science and math research through public service journalism.
More about usQuanta Magazine is committed to in-depth, accurate journalism that serves the public interest. Each article braids the complexities of science with the malleable art of storytelling and is meticulously reported, edited and fact-checked. Launched and funded by the Simons Foundation, Quanta is editorially independent — our articles do not reflect or represent the views of the foundation.
