Fifty years ago, “fractal” was born. In a 1975 book, the Polish-French-American mathematician Benoit B. Mandelbrot coined the term to describe a family of rough, fragmented shapes that fall outside the boundaries of conventional geometry. Mathematicians had been describing these types of shapes since the late 19th century. But by giving them a name — derived from fractus,
See how fractals forever changed math and science Read More »
“Six degrees of separation” refers to a long-held notion about social networks—namely, that any two people in a social network are connected to each other, through friends of friends, by a maximum of five individuals. But there’s more to this notion than folk wisdom: Researchers have found, repeatedly (for example, via studies of Twitter), that the maximum
Game theory approach describes how social networks produce “six degrees of separation” Read More »
Physicist Stephan Reuter of Polytechnique Montréal spends most days using his expertise in energy and matter to improve medical technologies. Recently though, he stood in a sea of green to consider how a shower of charged particles might affect lettuce. He had been invited to one of the largest commercial greenhouses in Quebec to help
Cold plasma and the farms of the future Read More »
Newton’s third law tells us that for every action, there’s an equal reaction going the opposite way. It’s been reassuring us for 400 years, explaining why we don’t fall through the floor (the floor pushes up on us too), and why paddling a boat makes it glide through water. When a system is in equilibrium,
A New Theory for Systems That Defy Newton’s Third Law Read More »
ONE April night in 1820, the Danish experimentalist Hans Christian Øersted made a remarkable discovery. By bringing an electrical wire near a compass lying on his workbench, he found its needle could be made to shiver and dance. Whether a lucky accident or an inspired bit of experimentation, that moment cemented Øersted’s reputation. What he
Exotic super magnets Read More »
Justin Burton’s fascination with soap bubbles began in Barcelona, Spain, six summers ago. “It was hot and humid, and there were guys on the street making these huge bubbles,” he says. “I thought it was the coolest thing.” When he returned home, his sister gave him a giant bubble wand. It included a recipe for
Scientists find the secret to colossal bubbles Read More »
November is election time, and not only for voters in the United States. On November 16, hundreds of scientists will gather in Paris, France, for the most unusual election this year, if not this century. Maybe ever. The voting scientists won’t be choosing new leaders or passing new laws. They’ll be voting on something more
Scientist vote to fix the world’s weight-loss problem Read More »
The antagonists in video games tend to be monsters or zombies, but Quantum Moves pits players against the fundamental laws of nature. The player’s goal is straightforward: Move an atom from one place to another as quickly and efficiently as possible while a timer counts down the seconds.Waves represent the changing probability distribution of the
Quantum games aim to demystify heady science Read More »
Robert Kremens fights fire with fire. No, really – that’s his job. Kremens sets fires in a host of locations across the US. In April he drove 18 hours from his home in Rochester, New York, to Tall Timbers, a research station in Tallahassee, Florida, to set three or four fires. In mid-May he travelled
Fighting Fire with Fire Read More »
If you’re interested in the smallest things known to scientists, there’s something you should know. They are extraordinarily ill-behaved. But that’s to be expected. Their home is the quantum world. These subatomic bits of matter don’t follow the same rules as objects that we can see, feel or hold. These entities are ghostly and strange.
The quantum world is mind-bogglingly weird Read More »
