Physics News, Interviews and Columns | Quanta Magazine
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A New Map of All the Particles and Forces | Quanta Magazine
Oct 22, 2020 · We’ve created a new way to explore the fundamental constituents of the universe. Ashley Mackenzie for Quanta Magazine. [Editor’s note: The full, interactive map is available below.] All of nature springs from a handful of components — the fundamental particles — that interact with one another in only a few different ways.
A Mathematician’s Guided Tour Through High Dimensions
Sep 13, 2021 · The formal study of higher dimensions emerged in the 19th century and became quite sophisticated within decades: A 1911 bibliography contained 1,832 references to the geometry of n dimensions. Perhaps as a consequence, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the public became infatuated with the fourth dimension.
The Mystery at the Heart of Physics That Only Math Can Solve
Jun 10, 2021 · The accelerating effort to understand the mathematics of quantum field theory will have profound consequences for both math and physics. Olena Shmahalo/Quanta Magazine. Over the past century, quantum field theory has proved to be the single most sweeping and successful physical theory ever invented. It is an umbrella term that encompasses many ...
Mathematician Proves Huge Result on ‘Dangerous’ Problem
Dec 11, 2019 · Lothar Collatz likely posed the eponymous conjecture in the 1930s. The problem sounds like a party trick. Pick a number, any number. If it’s odd, multiply it by 3 and add 1. If it’s even, divide it by 2. Now you have a new number. Apply the same rules to the new number. The conjecture is about what happens as you keep repeating the process.
How Earth’s Climate Changes Naturally (and Why Things Are …
Jul 21, 2020 · Earth’s climate has fluctuated through deep time, pushed by these 10 different causes. Here’s how each compares with modern climate change. Orbital wobbles, plate tectonics, evolutionary changes and other factors have sent the planet in and out of ice ages. Pablo A. Cumillaf. Earth has been a snowball and a hothouse at different times in ...
How Gödel’s Proof Works - Quanta Magazine
Jul 14, 2020 · So the only prime factorization of 243,000,000 is 2 6 × 3 5 × 5 6, meaning there’s only one possible way to decode the Gödel number: the formula 0 = 0. Gödel then went one step further. A mathematical proof consists of a sequence of formulas. So Gödel gave every sequence of formulas a unique Gödel number too.
Physicists Use Quantum Mechanics to Pull Energy out of Nothing
Feb 22, 2023 · The new quantum protocol effectively borrows energy from a distant location and thus violates no sacred physical principles. Kristina Armitage/ Quanta Magazine. For their latest magic trick, physicists have done the quantum equivalent of conjuring energy out of thin air. It’s a feat that seems to fly in the face of physical law and common sense.
The Most Famous Paradox in Physics Nears Its End
Oct 29, 2020 · The work appears to resolve a paradox that Stephen Hawking first described five decades ago. Ashley Mackenzie for Quanta Magazine. In a series of breakthrough papers, theoretical physicists have come tantalizingly close to resolving the black hole information paradox that has entranced and bedeviled them for nearly 50 years.
Why Gravity Is Not Like the Other Forces | Quanta Magazine
Jun 15, 2020 · According to Einstein, gravity is a feature of the space-time medium; the other forces of nature play out on that stage. But near the center of a black hole or in the first moments of the universe, Einstein’s equations break. Physicists need a truer picture of gravity to accurately describe these extremes. This truer theory must make the same ...