Plus: Classical computers learn quantum tricks; A tower of math under threat; Probing tropical tree diversity; New Quanta Science Podcast

Math and Science News from Quanta Magazine View this email in your browser QUANTUM PHYSICS | ALL TOPICS   Physicists Observe 'Unobservable' Quantum Phase Transition By CHARLIE WOOD Measurement and entanglement both have a "spooky" nonlocal flavor to them. Now physicists are harnessing that nonlocality to probe the spread of quantum information and control it. Read the article QUANTUM COMPUTING   Machine Learning Aids Classical Modeling of Quantum Systems By LAKSHMI CHANDRASEKARAN By using "classical shadows," ordinary computers can beat quantum computers at the tricky task of understanding quantum behaviors. Read the article Related:  New Codes Could Make Quantum Computing 10 Times More Efficient By Charlie Wood GEOMETRY   A Tower of Conjectures That Rests Upon a Needle By JORDANA CEPELEWICZ On its surface, the Kakeya conjecture seems like just a simple statement about rotating needles. But it underpins a wealth of mathematics, including a set of major problems in harmonic analysis. Read the blog Related:  New Proof Threads the Needle on a Sticky Geometry Problem By Jordana Cepelewicz BIODIVERSITY   'Species Repulsion' Enables High Biodiversity in Tropical Trees By VERONIQUE GREENWOOD Because tree seedlings don't grow as well when close to their parents, more tree species can be packed into tropical forests. Read the blog QUANTA SCIENCE PODCAST   Chatbots Don't Know What Stuff Isn't Article by MAX G. LEVY; Podcast hosted by SUSAN VALOT Researchers still don't understand whether machines will ever truly know the word "no." Listen to the podcast Read the article Around the Web A Crushing Problem A computer scientist analyzed the complexity of a popular mobile game, Candy Crush, and found that it is NP-hard — that is, it's hard to solve, but answers are easy to verify. Manon Bischoff reports on the finding for Scientific American. Complexity theory helps to clarify what kinds of problems can be solved easily by classical computers, and how quantum computers can solve some of the harder problems. In 2018, Kevin Hartnett wrote a short guide to the different complexity classes for Quanta. Cut to the Good Stuff What's the fairest way to split a cake? When dividing between two people, the "I cut, you choose" method works, but among more people, the division gets more complicated, Stephen Ornes writes for Science News. The cake-cutting problem is a deceptively tricky one, and mathematicians have grappled with it for years. Back in 2016, Erica Klarreich reported for Quanta on a new algorithm that fairly splits a cake among any number of people. Follow Quanta Unsubscribe | About Quanta | My Bookmarks Privacy Policy | Terms | Contact Us   Copyright © 2023 Quanta Magazine, an editorially independent division of the Simons Foundation Simons Foundation 160 5th Avenue, 7th Floor New York, NY 10010