A Letter from Thomas Lin, Outgoing Editor-in-Chief

Plus: Carl Zimmer covers the social lives of viruses; Lenny Susskind on "The Joy of Why"; 77th A.M. Turing Award; Grokking neural networks

Math and Science News from Quanta Magazine View this email in your browser EDITOR'S NOTE | ALL TOPICS   My Fantastic Voyage at Quanta By THOMAS LIN Dear Readers, Last July, I read this memo to the staff and explained why I had made the difficult decision to move on from my role as Quanta's editor-in-chief. This magazine has meant everything to me since I pitched the concept to the Simons Foundation in 2012. Building, growing, nurturing and leading the publication and staff — and being a part of what we've collectively accomplished — has been the most remarkable and rewarding experience of my career. And it's been especially gratifying to see valued Quanta readers like you multiply twentyfold over the past decade, with many millions more engaging with our science and math content on social media and YouTube, and through our podcasts and in translated reprintings around the world... Keep reading VIRUSES   Viruses Finally Reveal Their Complex Social Life By CARL ZIMMER New research has uncovered a social world of viruses full of cheating, cooperation and other intrigues, suggesting that viruses make sense only as members of a community. Read the article Related:  Viruses Can Scatter Their Genes Among Cells and Reassemble By Viviane Callier (2019) THE JOY OF WHY   Can Information Escape a Black Hole? Podcast hosted by JANNA LEVIN Black holes are inescapable traps for most of what falls into them — but there can be exceptions. The theoretical physicist Leonard Susskind speaks with co-host Janna Levin about the black hole information paradox and how it has propelled modern physics. Listen to the podcast Read the transcript   TURING AWARD   Avi Wigderson, Complexity Theory Pioneer, Wins Turing Award By STEPHEN ORNES The prolific researcher found deep connections between randomness and computation and spent a career influencing cryptographers, complexity researchers and more. Read the blog   ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE   How Do Machines 'Grok' Data? By ANIL ANANTHASWAMY By apparently overtraining them, researchers have seen neural networks discover novel solutions to problems. Read the article Related:  New Theory Suggests Chatbots Can Understand Text By Anil Ananthaswamy GEOMETRY   Number of Distances Separating Points Has a New Bound By LEILA SLOMAN Mathematicians have struggled to prove Falconer's conjecture, a simple but far-reaching hypothesis about the distances between points. They're finally getting close. Read the blog Follow Quanta Unsubscribe | About Quanta | My Bookmarks Privacy Policy | Terms | Contact Us   Copyright © 2024 Quanta Magazine, an editorially independent division of the Simons Foundation Simons Foundation 160 5th Avenue, 7th Floor New York, NY 10010