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A New Approach to Multiplication Opens the Door to Better Quantum Computers
Quantum computers can’t selectively forget information. A new algorithm for multiplication shows a way around that problem.
Viruses Have a Secret, Altruistic Social Life
Researchers are beginning to understand the ways in which viruses strategically manipulate and cooperate with one another.
In Quantum Games, There’s No Way to Play the Odds
These games combine quantum entanglement, infinity and impossible-to-calculate winning probabilities. But if researchers can crack them, they’ll reveal deep mathematical secrets.
Goals and Rewards Redraw the Brain’s Map of the World
Two new studies show that the brain’s navigation system changes how it represents physical space to reflect personal experience.
Sum-of-Three-Cubes Problem Solved for ‘Stubborn’ Number 33
A number theorist with programming prowess has found a solution to 33 = x³ + y³ + z³, a much-studied equation that went unsolved for 64 years.
Galaxy Simulations Offer a New Solution to the Fermi Paradox
Astronomers claim in a new paper that star motions should make it easy for civilizations to spread across the galaxy, but still we might find ourselves alone.
The Physics Still Hiding in the Higgs Boson
No new particles have been found at the Large Hadron Collider since the Higgs boson in 2012, but physicists say there’s much we can still learn from the Higgs itself.
Smarter Parts Make Collective Systems Too Stubborn
As researchers delve deeper into the behavior of decentralized collective systems, they’re beginning to question some of their initial assumptions.
How Our Universe Could Emerge as a Hologram
Physicists have devised a holographic model of “de Sitter space,” the term for a universe like ours, that could give us new clues about the origin of space and time.