Illuminating math and science. Supported by the Simons Foundation. 2022 Pulitzer Prize in Explanatory Reporting. www.quantamagazine.org
From this week’s Qualia column: “I’ll just say it: What the hell is going on with AI ‘reasoning’?” www.quantamagazine.org/is-ai-reason...
Is AI Reasoning Right for the Wrong Reasons? | Quanta MagazineThe idea that artificial intelligence can “reason” is more intuitive than ever. But intuitions can be wrong, and the science is far from settled.www.quantamagazine.orgMore than 2 billion years ago, there may have been a time when dark energy grew stronger, in defiance of the law of energy conservation. Tune into The Quanta Podcast for the full story: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/a-dark-dimension-could-link-two-of-the/id1021340531?i=1000778686446
A Dark Dimension Could Link Two of the Universe's Great UnknownsPodcast Episode · The Quanta Podcast · July 28 · 30mpodcasts.apple.comWhen Fields Medalist Yu Deng and collaborators Zaher Hani and Xiao Ma solved David Hilbert’s 124-year-old “sixth problem,” it took months for the rest of the mathematical community to even start to digest it
Yu Deng Wins the Fields Medal 2026 for His Work on the Random Data Problem | Quanta MagazineBefore he won a Fields Medal for his pioneering work balancing randomness and order, Yu Deng first had to achieve equilibrium in his own life.www.quantamagazine.orgFields Medalist Hong Wang has faced doubt throughout her career. It is a feeling that drew her to mathematics: the least doubtful thing.
Hong Wang Wins 2026 Fields Medal, the Third Woman Ever | Quanta MagazineFocus, commitment, and insight resulted in a “once in a century” proof. Hong Wang is now just the third woman to win a Fields Medal.www.quantamagazine.orgEven when IMU Abacus Medal winner Shayan Oveis Gharan isn’t working, his competitive spirit still comes through. “My kids believe that he’s the best cook in the world,” his sister said. “I’m like, ‘Dude, relax, you don't have to be the best in everything.’”
Shayan Oveis Gharan Wins 2026 IMU Abacus Medal | Quanta MagazineShayan Oveis Gharan has won the Abacus Medal for using tools from across mathematics to boost the power of algorithms.www.quantamagazine.orgA few years ago, physicists at Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory in Illinois used a giant magnetic ring to measure precisely how much the muon wobbles. Now they’re puzzling over the way that this measurement clashes with older experiments. www.quantamagazine.org/physicists-s...
Physicists Solve a Muon Mystery. Now, Old Results Don’t Add Up. | Quanta MagazineNew calculations seem to have put a 25-year-old particle physics puzzle to rest. But they’ve also created a clash with other experimental results.www.quantamagazine.orgFields Medalist Yu Deng has always been focused. As an undergraduate, he once went line-by-line through a highly technical PDE paper, all 75 pages. It took him a week, eight hours per day. “I just checked every single detail,” he said. www.quantamagazine.org/yu-deng-wins...
Written by Li Shangyin in the ninth century, “The Brocade Zither” is a poem famous for its ambiguity, where a simple phrase might have scores of diverging interpretations. It’s also one of Fields Medalist Yu Deng’s favorites. www.quantamagazine.org/yu-deng-wins...
John Pardon’s work is not centered around a particular mathematical area or theme. He simply solves problems that are, to him, interesting. His efforts have won him a 2026 Fields Medal.
John Pardon Wins the 2026 Fields Medal for Work in Symplectic Geometry | Quanta MagazineJohn Pardon sees connections between different areas of math that others don’t. For that vision, he’s now been awarded a Fields Medal.www.quantamagazine.orgAfter every milestone in Jacob Tsimerman’s award-winning math career, he asks himself: Is math really how I want to spend my life? Every time, the answer has been yes. But this time, now with a Fields Medal around his neck, the answer may be different.
Jacob Tsimerman Wins 2026 Fields Medal for André-Oort Conjecture Proof | Quanta MagazineDetermination and effort propelled Jacob Tsimerman to the top of the math world. But now that he’s won a Fields Medal, he worries that the field is in jeopardy.www.quantamagazine.orgGenerally, dark energy and dark matter are regarded as separate entities. But what if the two are in fact intertwined? Hear more on this week’s episode of The Quanta Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/a-dark-dimension-could-link-two-of-the/id1021340531?i=1000778686446
A Dark Dimension Could Link Two of the Universe’s Great UnknownsPodcast Episode · The Quanta Podcast · July 28 · 30mpodcasts.apple.comShayan Oveis Gharan has trouble staying still — so it’s fitting that he’s known for his work on the traveling salesperson problem, a notoriously difficult computational problem about roaming from place to place. And now he’s won the IMU Abacus Medal.
Shayan Oveis Gharan Wins 2026 IMU Abacus Medal | Quanta MagazineShayan Oveis Gharan has won the Abacus Medal for using tools from across mathematics to boost the power of algorithms.www.quantamagazine.orgYou are getting very sleepy… and your brain is entering a hypnagogic state. It’s that window of time when you’re lying in bed seeing mental images — but you’re not quite asleep. https://www.quantamagazine.org/how-the-brain-moves-from-waking-life-to-sleep-and-back-again-20251017/
How the Brain Moves From Waking Life to Sleep (and Back Again) | Quanta MagazineNeuroscientists probing the boundary between sleep and awareness are finding many types of liminal states, which help explain the sleep disorders that can result when sleep transitions go wrong.www.quantamagazine.orgIn Yu Deng’s first year at MIT, he attended a talk from visiting mathematician Andrea Nahmod, who was presenting research on the so-called random data problem. This talk would set the course of Deng’s entire career, culminating in his Fields Medal win. www.quantamagazine.org/yu-deng-wins...
Jacob Tsimerman has won the Fields Medal. The win comes at a weird time: “I think AI will be better than mathematicians at doing math within two years,” he said. www.quantamagazine.org/jacob-tsimer...
By the time Hong Wang’s proof of the three-dimensional Kakeya set conjecture was published, she was ready for other, even harder-to-prove conjectures. www.quantamagazine.org/hong-wang-wi...
Cows can eat up to 100lbs daily, thanks to the bustling microbiome in their gut pouch. All that digestion results in a whole lot of cow burps. And all those cow burps are warming our planet. Scientists are exploring new ways to squelch the belch. www.quantamagazine.org/a-new-way-th...
A New Way That a Cow’s Inner World Shapes Earth’s Atmosphere | Quanta MagazineAn organelle discovered inside a microbe inside a cow’s gut helps explain how livestock burps contribute to warming our planet.www.quantamagazine.orgSome of the world’s top mathematicians have a lot to say about new Fields Medalist John Pardon’s once-in-a-generation talent:
John Pardon Wins the 2026 Fields Medal for Work in Symplectic Geometry | Quanta MagazineJohn Pardon sees connections between different areas of math that others don’t. For that vision, he’s now been awarded a Fields Medal.www.quantamagazine.orgFor Shayan Oveis Gharan, research has always been a struggle: “It has a lot of ups and downs, mostly downs. You always think, ‘Can I ever come up with something that doesn’t fail?’” He’s now a IMU Abacus Medal winner. www.quantamagazine.org/shayan-oveis...
Fields Medalist Hong Wang hopes to make space in her life beyond math: “I always wish that I could come back to that time when I just feel like I had infinite time to read. I think that time was really nice.” www.quantamagazine.org/hong-wang-wi...