CLIMATE SCIENCE | ALL TOPICS

Physicists Pinpoint the Quantum Origin of the Greenhouse Effect

By JOSEPH HOWLETT

Carbon dioxide's powerful heat-trapping effect has been traced to a quirk of its quantum structure. The finding may explain climate change better than any computer model.

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COMBINATORICS

Grad Students Find Inevitable Patterns in Big Sets of Numbers

By LEILA SLOMAN

A new proof marks the first progress in decades on a problem about how order emerges from disorder.

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EXPLAINERS

How Base 3 Computing Beats Binary

By STEPHEN ORNES

Mathematicians have long explored counting in threes. Now base 3 computing may find a new home in cybersecurity and military warfare.

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QUANTA SCIENCE PODCAST

Never-Repeating Tiles Can Safeguard Quantum Information

Podcast hosted by SUSAN VALOT;
Story by BEN BRUBAKER

Two researchers have proved that Penrose tilings, famous patterns that never repeat, are mathematically equivalent to a kind of quantum error correction.

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