iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Quanta Magazine @quantamagazine.org · 30/09/2026

Lisa Sauermann and Huy Tuan Pham have been friends for the past decade. They just solved a decades-old math mystery with help from Fourier analysis. www.quantamagazine.org/mathematicia…

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Quanta Magazine @quantamagazine.org · 29/09/2026

The late mathematician Ronald Graham was also a skilled juggler. Fifty-five years ago, he posed a question that may have stemmed from the hobby. This year, it was finally solved. www.quantamagazine.org/mathematicia…

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Quanta Magazine @quantamagazine.org · 29/09/2026

Events occurring in neurons’ extended branches, known as dendrites, can perform incredibly complex computations, sometimes as powerfully as a deep artificial neural network. www.quantamagazine.org/a-new-type-o…

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Quanta Magazine @quantamagazine.org · 28/09/2026

Any patch of space can become a black hole if you put enough mass into it. For more brain-hurting information, enjoy the latest Qualia from Charlie Wood: www.quantamagazine.org/gravity-seem…

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Quanta Magazine @quantamagazine.org · 27/09/2026

In 2022, software engineer Shawn Ligocki discovered a six-rule Turing machine. Its runtime has more digits than the number of atoms in the universe. www.quantamagazine.org/busy-beaver-…

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Quanta Magazine @quantamagazine.org · 26/09/2026

Lie groups underlie some of the most fundamental laws of physics. www.quantamagazine.org/what-are-lie…

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Quanta Magazine @quantamagazine.org · 25/09/2026

Despite being a warm, wet, and decidedly classical environment, can a living cell maintain fragile quantum states? www.quantamagazine.org/biology-migh…

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Quanta Magazine @quantamagazine.org · 25/09/2026

Evolutionary bursts, rather than slow changes, led to the emergence of almost all characteristic cephalopod traits such as tentacles. www.quantamagazine.org/the-sudden-s…

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Quanta Magazine @quantamagazine.org · 24/09/2026

Why are some corn kernels on one cob purple and some yellow? Around 80 years ago, the answer challenged our understanding of how the entire genome works. www.quantamagazine.org/how-virus-li…

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Quanta Magazine @quantamagazine.org · 24/09/2026

In 1900, David Hilbert came up with a list of 23 problems to guide the next century of mathematical research. His sixth problem challenged mathematicians to axiomatize physics. www.quantamagazine.org/epic-effort-…

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Quanta Magazine @quantamagazine.org · 24/09/2026

Quantumlike behavior can emerge from all sorts of nature’s complex systems. Xavi Bou, an artist from Barcelona, creates composite images that reveal hidden, quantumlike patterns in nature.

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Quanta Magazine @quantamagazine.org · 23/09/2026

“Jumping genes” can cut and paste themselves into new locations in the genome. But they’re more than parasites or genetic junk. www.quantamagazine.org/how-virus-li…

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Quanta Magazine @quantamagazine.org · 23/09/2026

On September 16, Ioannis Tsiokos, a software developer in Athens, shared a paper claiming to have successfully prompted GPT-6 Astra into coming up with the first three-dimensional aperiodic monotile, which he has dubbed Chair44. www.quantamagazine.org/updates/tran…

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Quanta Magazine @quantamagazine.org · 23/09/2026

None of RNA’s remarkably versatile forms are built to last — not even within the cell that they came from. www.quantamagazine.org/cells-across…

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Quanta Magazine @quantamagazine.org · 22/09/2026

In 1944, Barbara McClintock’s description of mobile genetic sequences was treated with skepticism. But in 1983, she was awarded a Nobel Prize. www.quantamagazine.org/how-virus-li…

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Quanta Magazine @quantamagazine.org · 22/09/2026

It was on the small German island of Helgoland that the seed of quantum mechanics first sprouted in Werner Heisenberg’s mind. www.quantamagazine.org/its-a-mess-a…

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Quanta Magazine @quantamagazine.org · 22/09/2026

Does P=NP? It’s one of the most fundamental problems in computer science. But, what is P? What is NP? We explain in our complexity class primer: www.quantamagazine.org/a-short-guid…

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Quanta Magazine @quantamagazine.org · 21/09/2026

Read the explainer: www.quantamagazine.org/how-virus-li...

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Quanta Magazine @quantamagazine.org · 21/09/2026

The DNA in your cells has a much more complicated backstory than you might think. To convey this, our art department gave stop-motion a try:

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Quanta Magazine @quantamagazine.org · 20/09/2026

Natalie Behague recently helped prove a conjecture that gives researchers a new way to understand complex networks. She called it “almost too good to be true.” www.quantamagazine.org/mathematicia…

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Quanta Magazine @quantamagazine.org · 20/09/2026

The heartbeat and other bodily processes play a surprising role in shaping perception and cognition. www.quantamagazine.org/how-your-hea…

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Quanta Magazine @quantamagazine.org · 19/09/2026

Richard Montgomery helped craft a recipe for a mathematical sandwich that’s powerful but difficult to make. www.quantamagazine.org/mathematicia…

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Quanta Magazine @quantamagazine.org · 19/09/2026

In the 1930s, Kurt Gödel demonstrated that the mathematical universe is fundamentally unknowable. But set theorists still want to describe it as closely as possible. www.quantamagazine.org/is-mathemati…

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Quanta Magazine @quantamagazine.org · 19/09/2026

Ctenophores are considered “immortal jellyfish:” they have the Benjamin Button–like ability to reverse their development in the face of prolonged starvation or injury. www.quantamagazine.org/ctenophores-...

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Quanta Magazine @quantamagazine.org · 18/09/2026

Comb jellies are ancient marine predators whose hairlike extensions known as cilia refract light as they swim, giving them an iridescent shimmer. They are the largest animals known to use cilia for movement. www.quantamagazine.org/ctenophores-...

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Quanta Magazine @quantamagazine.org · 18/09/2026

This is a comb jelly — an elegant, voracious predator that lives in the deep sea, the cold poles and the warm tropics. The ribbonlike 𝘊𝘦𝘴𝘵𝘶𝘮 𝘷𝘦𝘯𝘦𝘳𝘪𝘴, or Venus’ girdle, is one of the largest species. It grows up to 1.5 meters in length. www.quantamagazine.org/ctenophores-...

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Quanta Magazine @quantamagazine.org · 15/09/2026

When a crystal is placed near a magnet, its electrons can only have certain amounts of energy. When this phenomenon is graphed, fractal patterns called Cantor sets emerge. quantamagazine.org/ten-martini-proo…

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Quanta Magazine @quantamagazine.org · 11/09/2026

In 1967, Canadian mathematician Robert Langlands wrote a letter to a colleague describing a connection between the far-flung realms of number theory and harmonic analysis. It led to one of the most ambitious projects in all of mathematics. www.quantamagazine.org/what-is-math...

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Quanta Magazine @quantamagazine.org · 06/09/2026

Quanta spoke to Sarah Demers, physics chair at Yale University, about AI in physics, and how physicists can benefit or suffer from it. Read the full interview: www.quantamagazine.org/in-an-age-of…

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Quanta Magazine @quantamagazine.org · 04/09/2026

One of the biggest problems in percolation theory is how fast a network floods when opened up to fluid flow. It was solved by five mathematicians just before Christmas 2025. www.quantamagazine.org/stunning-per…

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Quanta Magazine @quantamagazine.org · 04/09/2026

These snails are no bigger than the head of a match. You wouldn’t be able to guess by looking at them, but they have three or four sets of chromosomes in their cells, instead of the standard two. www.quantamagazine.org/genome-dupli…

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Quanta Magazine @quantamagazine.org · 03/09/2026

Most of the produce aisle exists thanks to genome duplication events. www.quantamagazine.org/genome-dupli…

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Quanta Magazine @quantamagazine.org · 01/09/2026

Origami crease patterns such as those used to fold a paper crane reveal hidden secrets about the amplituhedron, a shape that physicists use to calculate particle collisions. www.quantamagazine.org/origami-patt…

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Quanta Magazine @quantamagazine.org · 29/08/2026

The more possible futures an object has, the bigger its Hilbert space. A quantum coin has a two-dimensional Hilbert space (heads or tails), while a quantum cat free to inhabit any location would live in an infinite dimensional Hilbert space. www.quantamagazine.org/in-hilbert-s...

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Quanta Magazine @quantamagazine.org · 28/08/2026

John von Neumann, a 23-year-old prodigy, was the first to recognize and define the quantum world as a Hilbert space. Once he did, exploring the ins and outs of Hilbert space would lead physicists to a deeper, more unified understanding of quantum physics. www.quantamagazine.org/in-hilbert-s...

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Quanta Magazine @quantamagazine.org · 27/08/2026

Imagine a quantum traffic light: red, yellow, or green. Its potential futures exist in a three-dimensional Hilbert space, where the axes represent the three possible colors. Until the light is observed, it doesn’t have a color, but a mix of possible colors. www.quantamagazine.org/in-hilbert-s...

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Quanta Magazine @quantamagazine.org · 27/08/2026

Two leading neuroscientists have built a new framework for categorization, arguing that the brain categorizing concepts like “clown” or “fear” is an ongoing predictive tool that the nervous system uses to keep an organism alive. www.quantamagazine.org/a-new-framew...

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Quanta Magazine @quantamagazine.org · 24/08/2026

How many lines lie on a cubic surface? (The answer is 27.) A statement that’s been known for nearly 180 years has recently gained fresh nuance and relevance. www.quantamagazine.org/new-math-rev…

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Quanta Magazine @quantamagazine.org · 21/08/2026

In theory, the strange effects of quantum mechanics will superpower the quantum computers of tomorrow. But these effects are very fragile, and building the technology has not proved easy. www.quantamagazine.org/building-a-q…

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Quanta Magazine @quantamagazine.org · 20/08/2026

Peer into the technology underlying tomorrow's quantum computers: www.quantamagazine.org/building-a-q…

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Quanta Magazine @quantamagazine.org · 19/08/2026

By deciphering the molecular signatures of millions of mouse cells, Junyue Cao has found that aging is not haphazard wear and tear but rather a “remodeling of the cell society.” www.quantamagazine.org/why-aging-ma…

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Quanta Magazine @quantamagazine.org · 19/08/2026

Fluids can behave in surprising ways. They can even form clouds that look like waves, thanks to the way their microscopic particles swarm. www.quantamagazine.org/theory-of-fl…

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Quanta Magazine @quantamagazine.org · 18/08/2026

In the 20th century, a conceptual tsunami swept through physics, thanks to the ideas of Nobel Prize winner Kenneth Wilson. But the revolution didn’t reach fluids until now. www.quantamagazine.org/theory-of-fl…

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Quanta Magazine @quantamagazine.org · 18/08/2026

The three-quark model of a proton may be elegant, but this simplicity comes with shortcomings. Physicists have known for decades that the proton is much more than three quarks. www.quantamagazine.org/inside-the-p…

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Quanta Magazine @quantamagazine.org · 17/08/2026

Mathematician Alex Cohen’s recent breakthrough proof extended the fractal uncertainty principle to all dimensions. The result earned him an assistant professorship at NYU at the age of 25. www.quantamagazine.org/graduate-stu…

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Quanta Magazine @quantamagazine.org · 15/08/2026

Is aging simply decay? Not to cell biologist Junyue Cao, who believes the process is far more orderly: “The destruction of the system is programmed at a very early stage.” www.quantamagazine.org/why-aging-ma…

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