Pencils Down

Melanie Mitchell, the Davis professor of complexity at the Santa Fe Institute, has worked on digital minds for decades. She says AI will never truly be “intelligent” until they can do something uniquely human: make analogies.

The Standard Model of particle physics is the most successful scientific theory of all time. In this explainer, Cambridge University physicist David Tong recreates the model, piece by piece, to provide some intuition for how the fundamental building blocks of our universe fit together.

Nathan Seiberg explains the importance of math in figuring out and understanding the ultimate laws of the universe.

Federica Coppari describes how she uses giant lasers to study the insides of exotic exoplanets.

Quantum computers aren’t the next generation of supercomputers — they’re something else entirely. Before we can even begin to talk about their potential applications, we need to understand the fundamental physics that drives the theory of quantum computing.

At the heart of every galaxy lies one of the most mysterious objects in the universe: a supermassive black hole. Millions to billions of times the mass of our sun, these giants power astrophysical jets, one of the most energetic processes known to physics.

Marletto explains why traditional approaches to physics fail in important cases such as information theory, and how constructor theory might succeed.

Lucía Pérez-Díaz explores the mysteries of plate tectonics.

Volcanic eruptions are intimately connected with life. Scientists are using the current eruptions in Iceland to understand the possible history of life on Mars.