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Quanta Magazine

@quantamagazine.bsky.social

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

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Quanta Magazine @quantamagazine.bsky.social · 18h

Adding loops into a genome is a complicated and costly business for a cell. New findings suggest that it may be the reason that ancient life became complex. @philipcball.bsky.social reports:
www.quantamagazine.org/loops-of-dna...

Loops of DNA Equipped Ancient Life To Become Complex | Quanta Magazine

New work shows that physical folding of the genome to control genes located far away may have been an early evolutionary development.

www.quantamagazine.org

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Quanta Magazine @quantamagazine.bsky.social · 10h

Autonomous robots need something like a physical intuition in order to plan their movements and interact with the physical environment, but many AI models struggle with this worldliness. A recent model takes a different approach to learn about its surroundings.

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Quanta Magazine @quantamagazine.bsky.social · 17h

“It doesn’t take much of a temperature change to create a really different world.”
www.quantamagazine.org/climate-extr...

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Quanta Magazine @quantamagazine.bsky.social · 18h

Loops of DNA Equipped Ancient Life To Become Complex | Quanta Magazine

New work shows that physical folding of the genome to control genes located far away may have been an early evolutionary development.

www.quantamagazine.org

4 19

Quanta Magazine @quantamagazine.bsky.social · 1d

A recent proof has revealed a deep connection between origami and particle collisions.

Origami Patterns Solve a Major Physics Riddle | Quanta Magazine

The amplituhedron, a shape at the heart of particle physics, appears to be deeply connected to the mathematics of paper folding.

www.quantamagazine.org

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Quanta Magazine @quantamagazine.bsky.social · 1d

This summer, hundreds of quantum physicists including Devoret gathered on the remote German island of Helgoland, the birthplace of quantum mechanics, to reflect on this question and celebrate a century of quantum research.
www.quantamagazine.org/its-a-mess-a...

‘It’s a Mess’: A Brain-Bending Trip to Quantum Theory’s 100th Birthday Party | Quanta Magazine

Hundreds of physicists (and a few journalists) journeyed to Helgoland, the birthplace of quantum mechanics, and grappled with what they have and haven’t learned about reality.

www.quantamagazine.org

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Quanta Magazine @quantamagazine.bsky.social · 1d

If all objects are quantum mechanical — including big objects like ourselves — how does the reality we experience emerge from the bizarre quantum behavior of electrons and other particles?

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Quanta Magazine @quantamagazine.bsky.social · 1d

But in the mid-80s, Clarke, Devoret, and Martinis were pursuing a fundamental question: Is quantum mechanics a universal theory that applies to all objects big and small? Their work, and subsequent work, suggest that it is.
www.quantamagazine.org/how-big-can-...

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Quanta Magazine @quantamagazine.bsky.social · 1d

Martinis went on to lead Google’s effort to build quantum computers. There, he helped advance quantum error correction — a way to make the computer’s calculations more reliable.
www.quantamagazine.org/quantum-comp...

Quantum Computers Cross Critical Error Threshold | Quanta Magazine

In a first, researchers have shown that adding more “qubits” to a quantum computer can make it more resilient. It’s an essential step on the long road to practical applications.

www.quantamagazine.org

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Quanta Magazine @quantamagazine.bsky.social · 1d

These superconducting quantum gadgets lie at the heart of some of today’s most sophisticated quantum computers, where they act as “qubits” that can easily handle certain calculations that are harder for conventional computers.
www.quantamagazine.org/google-and-i...

Google and IBM Clash Over Quantum Supremacy Claim

Today Google announced that it achieved “quantum supremacy.” Its chief quantum computing rival, IBM, said it hasn’t. The disagreement hinges on what the term really means.

www.quantamagazine.org

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Quanta Magazine @quantamagazine.bsky.social · 1d

In the 1980s at UC Berkeley, Devoret and Martinis built devices with two superconducting wires separated by a material that blocked electricity. Nevertheless, electrons were able to “tunnel” through the barrier — a purely quantum phenomenon.
www.quantamagazine.org/quantum-tunn...

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Quanta Magazine @quantamagazine.bsky.social · 1d

John Clarke, Michel H. Devoret and John M. Martinis have won the Nobel Prize in physics for showing that quantum mechanics describes the behavior of objects much larger than atoms.
www.nobelprize.org/prizes/physi...

Nobel Prize in Physics 2025

The Nobel Prize in Physics 2025 was awarded jointly to John Clarke, Michel H. Devoret and John M. Martinis "for the discovery of macroscopic quantum mechanical tunnelling and energy quantisation in an...

www.nobelprize.org

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Quanta Magazine @quantamagazine.bsky.social · 1d

A new "quantum demon” may allow information to be processed in ways that classical physics does not permit.

A Thermometer for Measuring Quantumness | Quanta Magazine

“Anomalous” heat flow, which at first appears to violate the second law of thermodynamics, gives physicists a way to detect quantum entanglement without destroying it.

www.quantamagazine.org

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Quanta Magazine @quantamagazine.bsky.social · 2d

Any knot can be mathematically characterized by the steps needed to turn it into a simple loop. www.quantamagazine.org/a-simple-way...

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Quanta Magazine @quantamagazine.bsky.social · 2d

An AI model called V-JEPA uses “latent representations” to intuit the physics of the world around it.

How One AI Model Creates a Physical Intuition of Its Environment | Quanta Magazine

The V-JEPA system uses ordinary videos to understand the physics of the real world.

www.quantamagazine.org

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Quanta Magazine @quantamagazine.bsky.social · 2d

After centuries of effort, scientists have largely succeeded in digitally reconstructing the Earth in order to ask how its climate will change in the future. Now, not liking the answer, some are reaching to unplug the machine.
www.quantamagazine.org/how-climate-...

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Quanta Magazine @quantamagazine.bsky.social · 2d

A recent proof has revealed a deep connection between origami and particle collisions. www.quantamagazine.org/origami-patt...

Origami Patterns Solve a Major Physics Riddle | Quanta Magazine

The amplituhedron, a shape at the heart of particle physics, appears to be deeply connected to the mathematics of paper folding.

www.quantamagazine.org

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Quanta Magazine @quantamagazine.bsky.social · 3d

An unexpected challenge at the start of Naomi Saphra’s career shaped her research as a computer scientist. www.quantamagazine.org/to-understan...

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Quanta Magazine @quantamagazine.bsky.social · 4d

Babies love peek-a-boo because it plays with their developing notion of object permanence. V-JEPA, an AI model recently built at Meta, similarly exhibits “surprise” when its predictions of the real world fail to match its observations.

How One AI Model Creates a Physical Intuition of Its Environment | Quanta Magazine

The V-JEPA system uses ordinary videos to understand the physics of the real world.

www.quantamagazine.org

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Quanta Magazine @quantamagazine.bsky.social · 4d

Quantum physicists have figured out a way to diagnose the presence of quantum effects without destroying them.

A Thermometer for Measuring Quantumness | Quanta Magazine

“Anomalous” heat flow, which at first appears to violate the second law of thermodynamics, gives physicists a way to detect quantum entanglement without destroying it.

www.quantamagazine.org

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Quanta Magazine @quantamagazine.bsky.social · 4d

Climate change contains feedback loops. A warmer atmosphere, for example, can hold more water, which in turn doubles the total warming and draws even more water into the air.
www.quantamagazine.org/the-climate-...

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Quanta Magazine @quantamagazine.bsky.social · 5d

This year, the physicist Patryk Lipka-Bartosik and his colleagues built a thermometer of sorts to spy on entangled qubits inside quantum computers and other quantum systems. www.quantamagazine.org/a-thermomete...

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Quanta Magazine @quantamagazine.bsky.social · 5d

The creation of order inevitably leads to disorder. On Earth, the same system that made life has been disrupted because of it.

How Humanity Amplified Life’s Quest for Energy | Quanta Magazine

A planetary perspective on the relationship between life and energy, and the emergence of a life form whose influence extends across the entire biosphere — presenting us with an awesome opportunity.

www.quantamagazine.org

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Quanta Magazine @quantamagazine.bsky.social · 5d

An AI model called V-JEPA is capable of “intuiting” the physical properties of the real world, gaining a sense of object permanence, the constancy of shape and color, and the effects of gravity. @anilananth.bsky.social reports:

www.quantamagazine.org/how-one-ai-m...

How One AI Model Creates a Physical Intuition of Its Environment | Quanta Magazine

The V-JEPA system uses ordinary videos to understand the physics of the real world.

www.quantamagazine.org

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Quanta Magazine @quantamagazine.bsky.social · 6d

A new trick for detecting quantum entanglement is conducted at a surprisingly large scale.

A Thermometer for Measuring Quantumness | Quanta Magazine

“Anomalous” heat flow, which at first appears to violate the second law of thermodynamics, gives physicists a way to detect quantum entanglement without destroying it.

www.quantamagazine.org

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Quanta Magazine @quantamagazine.bsky.social · 6d

www.quantamagazine.org/the-quantum-...

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