Giant Arc of Galaxies Puts Basic Cosmology Under Scrutiny

The cosmological principle — the idea that cosmos is the same everywhere and in all directions — is surviving a storm of possible evidence against it.

Math and Science News from Quanta Magazine View this email in your browser COSMOLOGY | ALL TOPICS   Cosmologists Parry Attacks on the Cosmological Principle By CHARLIE WOOD A central pillar of cosmology — the universe is the same everywhere and in all directions — is surviving a storm of possible evidence against it. Read the article COMBINATORICS   Oxford Mathematician Advances Century-Old Combinatorics Problem By ERICA KLARREICH A new paper shows how to create longer disordered strings than mathematicians had thought possible, proving that a well-known recent conjecture is "spectacularly wrong." Read the article QUANTIZED COLUMNS   What Does It Mean for AI to Understand? By MELANIE MITCHELL Language models can generate uncannily humanlike prose (and poetry!) and seemingly perform sophisticated linguistic reasoning. How can we test if these machines actually understand what they're doing? Read the column   Q&A   When a Gene Illness Discovery Means Breaking Bad News By RACHEL CROWELL When scientists discover genes linked to dangerous illnesses in their samples, how should they convey that news to the study participants? The geneticist Cristen Willer had to tackle that challenge. Read the interview Related:  Karen Miga Fills In the Missing Pieces of Our Genome by Carrie Arnold Around the Web Rebalancing Ocean Carbon Removing carbon dioxide from our atmosphere is critical to fighting climate change. Equally important is its removal from our oceans, as Scott K. Johnson reports for Ars Technica. One key to removing CO2 from the ocean is fighting ocean acidification. In 2019, Christie Wilcox wrote for Quanta about how dead creatures on the sea floor can help maintain a healthy pH. Be Chill but Don't Freeze Researchers managed to keep water in its liquid form down to -47.2 degrees Fahrenheit, Ashley Hamer reports for Live Science. Water's phase diagram is vastly more complicated than textbooks usually describe. Not only can it be a frigid liquid, but it can also be a sweltering solid. In 2019, Joshua Sokol wrote for Quanta about "superionic ice," water ice with a temperature of thousands of degrees. 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