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New Quantum Algorithm Factors Numbers With One Qubit
The catch: It would require the energy of a few medium-size stars.
First Map Made of a Solid’s Secret Quantum Geometry
Physicists recently mapped the hidden shape that underlies the quantum behaviors of a crystal, using a new method that’s expected to become ubiquitous.
How Much Energy Does It Take To Think?
Studies of neural metabolism reveal our brain’s effort to keep us alive and the evolutionary constraints that sculpted our most complex organ.
The Core of Fermat’s Last Theorem Just Got Superpowered
By extending the scope of the key insight behind Fermat’s Last Theorem, four mathematicians have made great strides toward building a “grand unified theory” of math.
How Can AI Researchers Save Energy? By Going Backward.
Reversible programs run backward as easily as they run forward, saving energy in theory. After decades of research, they may soon power AI.
Will We Ever Prove String Theory?
Promise and controversy continues to surround string theory as a potential unified theory of everything. In the latest episode of The Joy of Why, Cumrun Vafa discusses his progress in trying to find good, testable models hidden among the ‘swampland’ of impossible universes.
How Paradoxical Questions and Simple Wonder Lead to Great Science
Manu Prakash works on the world’s most urgent problems and seemingly frivolous questions at the same time. They add up to a philosophy he calls “recreational biology.”
Singularities in Space-Time Prove Hard to Kill
Black hole and Big Bang singularities break our best theory of gravity. A trilogy of theorems hints that physicists must go to the ends of space and time to find a fix.
Graduate Student Solves Classic Problem About the Limits of Addition
A new proof illuminates the hidden patterns that emerge when addition becomes impossible.