Explainers
Space-Time: The Biggest Problem in Physics
What is the deepest level of reality? In this Quanta explainer, Vijay Balasubramanian, a physicist at the University of Pennsylvania, takes us on a journey through space-time to investigate what it’s made of, why it’s failing us, and where physics can go next.
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Michael Assis: The Atomic Theory of Origami
Michael Assis demonstrates how defects can be used to tune the properties of Miura-ori origami.
Rebecca Goldin: Why Math Is the Best Way to Make Sense of the World
Rebecca Goldin explains why quantitative literacy is so important.
Nigel Goldenfeld: Seeing Emergent Physics Behind Evolution
Nigel Goldenfeld explains how condensed matter physics provides insights into the collective state of early life on Earth.
Neil Johnson: A Physicist Who Models ISIS and the Alt-Right
Neil Johnson on the physics of collective human behavior.
Svitlana Mayboroda: Taming Rogue Waves
Svitlana Mayboroda describes how the landscape function helps solve the mystery of wave localization.
Jay Pasachoff: Eclipse Hunter Reveals the Science That Can Only Be Done in the Dark
Jay Pasachoff explains what scientists can learn during a total solar eclipse.
Andrea Ghez: Black-Hole Hunter Takes Aim at Einstein
In this 2017 interview, the UCLA astrophysicist Andrea Ghez explains how tracking the movement of stars revealed the existence of a supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way galaxy.
Jessica Flack: How Nature Solves Problems Through Computation
Jessica Flack describes the special challenges of applying collective computation to the understanding of complex biological systems.
Purvesh Khatri: More Data — the Dirtier the Better
Purvesh Khatri learned that by working with ‘messy’ clinical data sets, he could find genes that the human body expresses in response to diverse forms of a disease.