After years of false starts, a team of computer scientists has found a way to efficiently deduce the Hamiltonian of a ...

If you want to efficiently pack squares in two dimensions, you arrange them like a checkerboard. To squeeze together ...

Why have bacteria never evolved complex multicellularity? A new hypothesis suggests that it could come down to how ...

The outer layers of the sun’s atmosphere are a blistering million degrees hotter than its surface. The hidden culprit? Magnetic activity. Thomas H. Zurbuchen is a professor and leader of the space ...

Quanta Magazine is an editorially independent online publication launched by the Simons Foundation in 2012 to enhance public understanding of science. Why Quanta? Albert Einstein called photons ...