Paul Nelson has moved mathematicians one step closer to understanding the Riemann hypothesis and the distribution of prime numbers.

Math and Science News from Quanta Magazine View this email in your browser 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. Read the article 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. Read the article 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. Read the blog 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. Read the blog 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 Gödel's incompleteness theorem. While simple logic puzzles can capture its essence, Gödel's actual proof is much more involved. Natalie Wolchover explained how it works for Quanta in 2020. Follow Quanta Simons Foundation 160 5th Avenue, 7th Floor New York, NY 10010 Unsubscribe | About Quanta Privacy Policy | Terms | Contact Us   Copyright © 2022 Quanta Magazine, an editorially independent division of the Simons Foundation