Friday, January 14, 2022

Mathematicians Clear Hurdle in Quest to Decode Primes

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NUMBER THEORY | ALL TOPICS

 

Mathematicians Clear Hurdle in Quest to Decode Primes

By KEVIN HARTNETT

Paul Nelson has solved the subconvexity problem, bringing mathematicians one step closer to understanding the Riemann hypothesis and the distribution of prime numbers.

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COVID-19

 

Evolution 'Landscapes' Predict What's Next for COVID Virus

By CARRIE ARNOLD

As SARS-CoV-2 mutates, scientists are using topographical maps called "fitness landscapes" to chart the virus's evolutionary history and predict its future.

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Related: 
A Lack of COVID-19 Genomes
Could Prolong the Pandemic

by Puja Changoiwala (2021)

QUANTUM GRAVITY

 

Symmetries Reveal Clues About the Holographic Universe

By KATIE McCORMICK

Physicists are using fundamental symmetries to work out the basic rules for a theory of our universe — one independent from the concepts of space and time.

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Related: 
Gravitational Waves Should
Permanently Distort Space-Time

by Katie McCormick (2021)

MATHEMATICAL PHYSICS

 

Euler's 243-Year-Old 'Impossible' Puzzle Gets a Quantum Solution

By DANIEL GARISTO

A surprising new solution to Leonhard Euler's famous "36 officers puzzle" offers a novel way of encoding quantum information.

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Related: 
Mathematician Answers Chess
Problem About Attacking Queens

by Leila Sloman (2021)

Around the Web

Clocking Memories
A new study helps clarify how the brain keeps a record of the timing of events by firing special neurons called "time cells," as Abdulrahman Olagunju reports for Scientific American. Although scientists have known certain cells time-stamp our memories, they haven't known how. In 2019 Jordana Cepelewicz wrote for Quanta about one theory: Our brain encodes the information with a mathematical function called a Laplace transform.

Clarified Incompleteness
A logic puzzle from Alex Bellos for The Guardian illustrates a simplified proof for G├╢del's incompleteness theorem. While simple logic puzzles can capture its essence, G├╢del's actual proof is much more involved. Natalie Wolchover explained how it works for Quanta in 2020.
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