What We're Reading

From Death Valley to Chile to Iran, similarly sized polygons of salt form in playas all over the world — and subterranean fluid flows might be the key to solving the long-standing puzzle of why.

The strange phenomenon of quantum tunneling has been observed in a chemical reaction that defies classical physics.

A nearly 1,000-page proof shows that slowly rotating black holes are stable.

Researchers from the Flatiron Institute and the Institute of Advanced Study have developed a (relatively speaking) simple solution to the issue of calculating the weight of the universe, with some assistance from artificial intelligence.

The honor, like a Nobel Prize for mathematics, was given this year to Luis Caffarelli for his work on partial differential equations.

Quantum bursts of light could help examine minute chemical reactions and reveal the quantum properties of mysterious materials.

A research team that included Dries Sels of the Flatiron Institute's Center for Computational Quantum Physics performed the first experimental observation of the onset of quantum avalanches in a many-body localized system.

A new experiment pulled off the most precise measurement of an electron’s self-generated magnetic field—and the universe’s subatomic model is at stake.

Researchers hope this new wiring map of the fruit fly can offer clues to how all brains learn, for example, and remember, and control an animal's behavior.

Flatiron Institute astrophysicist Shirley Ho weighs in on new research showing that, contrary to conventional wisdom, retraining earlier levels of the algorithm often achieves better results than retraining later ones.