A New Map of All the Particles and Forces | Quanta Magazine
WEBOct 22, 2020 · We’ve created a new way to explore the fundamental constituents of the universe. 68. 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.
Topology 101: The Hole Truth | Quanta Magazine
WEBJan 26, 2021 · For instance, in 1813 the Swiss mathematician Simon Lhuilier recognized that if we punch a hole in a polyhedron to make it more donut-shaped, changing its topology, then V – E + F = 0. Samuel Velasco/Quanta Magazine. Interestingly, while Euler and Lhuilier imagined their polyhedra as solid, Euler’s formula is …
The Mystery at the Heart of Physics That Only Math Can Solve
WEBJun 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 ...
What Is a Particle? - Quanta Magazine
WEBNov 12, 2020 · A Particle Is a ‘Collapsed Wave Function’ 1. The quest to understand nature’s fundamental building blocks began with the ancient Greek philosopher Democritus’s assertion that such things exist. Two millennia later, Isaac Newton and Christiaan Huygens debated whether light is made of particles or waves.
Why Are Plants Green? To Reduce the Noise in Photosynthesis.
WEBJul 30, 2020 · Plants ignore the most energy-rich part of sunlight because stability matters more than efficiency, according to a new model of photosynthesis. Land plants are green because their photosynthetic pigments reflect green light, even though those wavelengths hold the most energy. Scientists finally understand why. …
A Physicist’s Physicist Ponders the Nature of Reality
WEBNov 28, 2017 · A Physicist’s Physicist Ponders the Nature of Reality. Edward Witten reflects on the meaning of dualities in physics and math, emergent space-time, and the pursuit of a complete description of nature. Edward Witten in his office at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey. Jean Sweep for Quanta Magazine.
The Most Famous Paradox in Physics Nears Its End
WEBOct 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.
Quantum Tunnels Show How Particles Can Break the Speed of Light
WEBOct 20, 2020 · The trouble was that the answer didn’t make sense. The first tentative calculation of tunneling time appeared in print in 1932. Even earlier stabs might have been made in private, but “when you get an answer you can’t make sense of, you don’t publish it,” noted Aephraim Steinberg, a physicist at the University of Toronto.. It wasn’t until 1962 that a semiconductor engineer at Texas ...
A New Physics Theory of Life - Quanta Magazine
WEBJan 22, 2014 · An MIT physicist has proposed the provocative idea that life exists because the law of increasing entropy drives matter to acquire lifelike physical properties. Jeremy England, a 31-year-old physicist at MIT, thinks he has found the underlying physics driving the origin and evolution of life. Katherine Taylor for Quanta Magazine.
How Gödel’s Proof Works - Quanta Magazine
WEBJul 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.