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  1. A New Quantum Math of Cryptography

    We’re living in the golden age of cryptography. Since the 1970s, we've had more confidence in encryption than ever before. But there's a difference between confidence and absolute certainty. And computer scientists care a lot about that dif

  2. How an Outsider Optimized Sphere-Packing

    How many oranges can you fit in a box? Mathematicians are obsessed with perfecting their answer to this question in not just our familiar three-dimensional world, but in higher and higher dimensions beyond it. For several decades, they've m

  3. Audio Edition: Undergraduate Upends a 40-Year-Old Data Science Conjecture

    A young computer scientist and two colleagues show that searches within data structures called hash tables can be much faster than previously deemed possible. The story How Undergraduate Upends a 40-Year-Old Data Science Conjecture (https:/

  4. ‘It’s a Mess’: A Brain-Bending Trip to Quantum Theory’s 100th Birthday Party

    As far as we know, quantum mechanics is a universal theory that explains matter and light more or less perfectly. It shows us why atoms don't collapse and why electrons don't spiral into the nucleus of the atom. It explains why glass is cle

  5. How Smell Guides Our Inner World

    When some people smell the molecule benzyl acetate, they identify a distinctly banana-y scent. But when others sniff the same compound, they get hints of nail polish remover. How can this be? Smell is a tricky sensory process to pin down. O

  6. Audio Edition: How ‘Event Scripts’ Structure Our Personal Memories

    By screening films in a brain scanner, neuroscientists discovered a rich library of neural scripts — from a trip through an airport to a marriage proposal — that form scaffolds for memories of our experiences. The story How ‘Event Scripts’

  7. When ChatGPT Broke an Entire Field

    The study of natural language processing, or NLP, dates back to the 1940s. It gave Stephen Hawking a voice, Siri a brain and social media companies another way to target us with ads. In less than five years, large language models broke NLP

  8. Is Mathematics Mostly Chaos or Mostly Order?

    As weird as it sounds, infinity comes in many shapes and sizes. And attempting to quantify it is sort of like a dog chasing its own tail. Or like infinities chasing infinities infinite numbers of times. But some mathematicians are obsessed

  9. Audio Edition: After 20 Years, Math Couple Solves Major Group Theory Problem

    Britta Späth has dedicated her career to proving a single, central conjecture. She’s finally succeeded, alongside her partner, Marc Cabanes. The story After 20 Years, Math Couple Solves Major Group Theory Problem (https://www.quantamagazine

  10. When Did Nature Burst Into Vivid Color?

    Colorful messages are constantly being exchanged across the natural world, to communicate everything from sexual attraction to self defense. But which came first: these evocative signals or the sophisticated vision needed to see them? In th

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