Quanta Magazine

Quanta Magazine

@quantamagazine.org

Illuminating math and science. Supported by the Simons Foundation. 2022 Pulitzer Prize in Explanatory Reporting. www.quantamagazine.org

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The French mathematician Nicolas de Condorcet was a passionate believer in democracy. He also discovered a frustrating paradox within it. Now, mathematicians have found that this centuries-old voting paradox has a strange topological shape. www.quantamagazine.org/how-voting-i...

quantamagazine.orgHow Voting Is Like a Klein Bottle | Quanta MagazineA new topological model connects a centuries-old voting paradox to a surface with no distinct inside or outside.
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To invade red blood cells, malaria parasites create a temporary molecular portal that lets it slip into the cell — and then disappears behind it. Researchers have finally detailed the proteins that let it break in without tripping the alarms. www.quantamagazine.org/malaria-para...

quantamagazine.orgMalaria Parasite Caught in the Act of Breaking and Entering | Quanta MagazineTo invade red blood cells, the deadly protists create temporary molecular portals that disappear behind them — doors we can now see in fine detail.
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OpenAI’s new proof of the quasi-Riemann hypothesis is, as Jared Duker Lichtman of Stanford University put it, “the most significant AI-for-math achievement so far, by quite a margin.” https://www.quantamagazine.org/ai-proved-the-quasi-riemann-hypothesis-what-happens-now-20261019/

quantamagazine.orgAI Proved the Quasi-Riemann Hypothesis. What Happens Now? | Quanta MagazineUnlike other recent AI proofs, this one has been unpacked by human experts. The implications, one mathematician said, are “staggering.”
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Over the past few months, Quanta’s math editor Jordana Cepelewiz has heard from lots of mathematicians, students and senior researchers alike, about the upheaval that AI has wrought. The situation is tense. Read her column: https://www.quantamagazine.org/is-ai-the-end-of-math-as-we-know-it-20261005/

quantamagazine.orgIs AI the End of Math As We Know It? | Quanta MagazineMathematicians are facing the sudden shift with grief, anger, and a desperate search for fresh ideas: “If we don’t adapt, there’s just no more math in 50 years.”
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Among the 377 results that OpenAI announced two weeks ago, one stood out. It claimed to settle the “quasi-Riemann hypothesis” — a weaker version of the Riemann hypothesis, which is arguably the biggest open question in math. @kkakaes reports: www.quantamagazine.org/ai-proved-th...

quantamagazine.orgAI Proved the Quasi-Riemann Hypothesis. What Happens Now? | Quanta MagazineUnlike other recent AI proofs, this one has been unpacked by human experts. The implications, one mathematician said, are “staggering.”
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Attention is a mathematical operation built into AI systems that allow them to link words and build context. What can this mechanism teach us about our own linguistic ability? https://www.quantamagazine.org/is-attention-the-essence-of-intelligence-20261012/

quantamagazine.orgIs ‘Attention’ the Essence of Intelligence? | Quanta MagazineA mathematical mechanism enables AI models to process language at scale, undergirding the current AI revolution. Our columnist asks: Why is attention the key?
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Benchmarks paradoxically helped start both a 25-year AI winter in the late 1980s and a deep learning revolution in the 2010s. https://www.quantamagazine.org/he-wants-ai-benchmarking-to-be-a-science-not-a-dark-art-20261016/

quantamagazine.orgHe Wants AI Benchmarking To Be a Science, Not a Dark Art | Quanta MagazineMoritz Hardt, author of a new book on benchmarks, believes these “standardized tests” for artificial intelligence are fundamentally broken — but not unfixable.
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In 2017, transformers supercharged language modeling while trying to tackle translation. It unleashed staggering power. Read the latest Qualia column: https://www.quantamagazine.org/is-attention-the-essence-of-intelligence-20261012/

quantamagazine.orgIs ‘Attention’ the Essence of Intelligence? | Quanta MagazineA mathematical mechanism enables AI models to process language at scale, undergirding the current AI revolution. Our columnist asks: Why is attention the key?
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Moritz Hardt thinks that OpenAI and Anthropic’s claims about benchmarks, which are used to test AI models’ capabilities, are misleading. But if the tests aren’t accurate, then how do we know how good the models really are? Read the interview: www.quantamagazine.org/he-wants-ai-...

quantamagazine.orgHe Wants AI Benchmarking To Be a Science, Not a Dark Art | Quanta MagazineMoritz Hardt, author of a new book on benchmarks, believes these “standardized tests” for artificial intelligence are fundamentally broken — but not unfixable.
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In the early 1900s, Emmy Noether explored the mathematical consequences of symmetries. In doing so, she shook the very foundations of fundamental physics. https://www.quantamagazine.org/how-noethers-theorem-revolutionized-physics-20250207/

quantamagazine.orgHow Noether's Theorem Revolutionized Physics | Quanta MagazineEmmy Noether showed that fundamental physical laws are just a consequence of simple symmetries. A century later, her insights continue to shape physics.
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In AI’s developmental years, its network architecture created a bottleneck that limited its capabilities. Then researchers tried a mathematical operation referred to as “attention,” and everything changed. https://www.quantamagazine.org/is-attention-the-essence-of-intelligence-20261012/

quantamagazine.orgIs ‘Attention’ the Essence of Intelligence? | Quanta MagazineA mathematical mechanism enables AI models to process language at scale, undergirding the current AI revolution. Our columnist asks: Why is attention the key?

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Dr Robin George Andrews
@squigglyvolcano.bsky.social

NEW: Just in time for spooky season, I wrote about three ghostly galaxies whose pallid appearance is the least weird thing about them. The weirdest thing? They lack dark matter—the invisible glue that stars and galaxies need to form. Me @quantamagazine.org www.quantamagazine.org/triplet-of-g...

quantamagazine.orgTriplet of ‘Ghostly’ Galaxies Hints at What Dark Matter Is — and Isn’t | Quanta MagazineA collision may have left these galaxies without dark matter. That spells trouble for alternative gravity theories.

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Steven Strogatz
@stevenstrogatz.com

Hey, it looks like our The Joy of Why podcast has a serious chance of winning a Signal Award (in the science and education category). if you are a fan of our show, please vote for it – and tell all your friends to do the same! Let's win this thing! 🙏🕺 vote.signalaward.com/PublicVoting...

vote.signalaward.comThe Signal Listener's Choice Award needs YOUI just voted for this finalist to win a Signal Listener's Choice Award. You should too.
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What processes ensure that a liver cell will stay a liver cell as it progresses through an organism’s development process? https://www.quantamagazine.org/how-does-life-unfold-a-landscape-metaphor-comes-into-its-own-20261009/

quantamagazine.orgHow Does Life Unfold? A Landscape Metaphor Comes Into Its Own. | Quanta MagazineC.H. Waddington’s powerful image of embryonic stem cells specializing on a rolling landscape has captivated biologists since the 1950s. Experimental data is finally confirming, and complicating, his v...