What’s the best way to solve hard problems? That’s the question at the heart of a subfield of computer science called computational complexity theory. It’s a hard question to answer, but flip it around and it becomes easier. The worst approach is almost always trial and error, which involves plugging in possible solutions until one works. But for some...

At a conference in Japan a few years ago, David Dunsky attended a talk about gravitational waves, ripples in the fabric of space-time created when massive objects like stars and black holes accelerate. Dunsky was a graduate student in particle physics at the time, and his interests seemingly lay elsewhere. Particle physicists seek the more fundamental...

Ishmail Abdus-Saboor has been fascinated by the variety of the natural world since he was a boy growing up in Philadelphia. The nature walks he took under the tutelage of his third grade teacher, Mr. Moore, entranced him. “We got to interact and engage with wildlife and see animals in their native environment,” he recalled. Abdus-Saboor also brought...

In October, a Falcon Heavy rocket is scheduled to launch from Cape Canaveral in Florida, carrying NASA’s Europa Clipper mission. The $5 billion mission is designed to find out if Europa, Jupiter’s fourth-largest moon, can support life. But because Europa is constantly bombarded by intense radiation created by Jupiter’s magnetic field, the Clipper spacecraft...

For all their brilliance, artificial neural networks remain as inscrutable as ever. As these networks get bigger, their abilities explode, but deciphering their inner workings has always been near impossible. Researchers are constantly looking for any insights they can find into these models. A few years ago, they discovered a new one. In January 2022,...

Dear Readers, Last July, I read this memo to the staff and explained why I had made the difficult decision to move on from my role as Quanta’s editor-in-chief. This magazine has meant everything to me since I pitched the concept to the Simons Foundation in 2012. Building, growing, nurturing and leading the publication and staff — and being a part of...