Neutrino Puzzles Point to the Possibility of Missing Particles

Math and Science News from Quanta Magazine View this email in your browser PARTICLE PHYSICS | ALL TOPICS   Is the Great Neutrino Puzzle Pointing to Multiple Missing Particles? By THOMAS LEWTON Years of conflicting neutrino measurements have led physicists to propose a "dark sector" of invisible particles — one that could simultaneously explain dark matter, the puzzling expansion of the universe, and other mysteries. Read the article TOPOLOGY   How Tadayuki Watanabe Disproved a Major Conjecture About Spheres By KEVIN HARTNETT Watanabe invented a new way of distinguishing shapes on his way to solving the last open case of the Smale conjecture, a central question in topology about symmetries of the sphere. Read the article Related:  A Proof About Where Symmetries Can't Exist by Kevin Hartnett (2018) QUANTUM PHYSICS   An Ultra-Precise Clock Shows How to Link the Quantum World With Gravity By KATIE McCORMICK Time was found to flow differently between the top and bottom of a single cloud of atoms. Physicists hope that such a system will one day help them combine quantum mechanics and Einstein's theory of gravity. Read the blog Related:  The New Thermodynamic Understanding of Clocks by Natalie Wolchover INSIGHTS PUZZLE   Where Transcendental Numbers Hide in Everyday Math By PRADEEP MUTALIK The two most famous transcendental numbers, 𝝿 and 𝒆 (Euler's number), seem mysterious and magical. This month's puzzle column challenges readers to use Euler's number to maximize marital bliss. Solve the puzzle Related:  How to Solve Equations That Are Stubborn as a Goat by Patrick Honner QUANTA SCIENCE PODCAST   The Brain Doesn't Think the Way You Think It Does Podcast hosted by SUSAN VALOT; Story by JORDANA CEPELEWICZ The subjective experience of our perceptions, memories and attention can be misleading about how the brain produces them. New research is revealing the truth. Listen to the podcast Read the article   Around the Web An Exoplanet Outside the Milky Way The first extragalactic planet may have just been spotted in the nearby Whirlpool Galaxy.  This is a hot, Saturn-sized planet orbiting far from its binary star system, Lisa Grossman reports for Science News. We can expect many more exoplanet discoveries with the launch of the James Webb Space Telescope. Earlier this month, Thomas Lewton interviewed the astronomer Laura Kreidberg for Quanta about her plans to use JWST to study the atmospheres of cooler, Earthlike planets. Through the Quantum Looking Glass  Physicists damped vibrations in LIGO's 40-kilogram mirrors down to the edge of the quantum limit, Emily Conover reports for Science News. The LIGO experiment is just one of many investigating the scales at which large, seemingly classical objects start to manifest quantum behaviors. Philip Ball described other experiments testing the limits of quantum mechanics for Quanta in August. Follow Quanta Simons Foundation 160 5th Avenue, 7th Floor New York, NY 10010 Unsubscribe | About Quanta Privacy Policy | Terms | Contact Us   Copyright © 2021 Quanta Magazine, an editorially independent division of the Simons Foundation