Is Gravity Just Entropy Rising? Long-Shot Idea Gets Another Look.

By GEORGE MUSSER

A new argument explores how the growth of disorder could cause massive objects to move toward one another. Physicists are both interested and skeptical.

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MATHEMATICAL PHYSICS

Epic Effort to Ground Physics in Math Opens Up the Secrets of Time

By LEILA SLOMAN

By mathematically proving how individual molecules create the complex motion of fluids, three mathematicians have illuminated why time can't flow in reverse.

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QUANTUM COMPUTING

New Quantum Algorithm Factors Numbers With One Qubit

By STEPHEN ORNES

A surprising approach to quantum computing brings new possibilities to the field, but at a high energy cost.

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Black hole and Big Bang singularities break our best theory of gravity. A trilogy of theorems hints that physicists must go to the ends of space and time to find a fix.

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THE JOY OF WHY

Does Form Really Shape Function?
Co-hosted by STEVEN STROGATZ

and JANNA LEVIN

From brain folds to insect architecture, L. Mahadevan explains how complex biological forms and behaviors emerge through the interplay of physical forces, environment and embodiment.

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VIDEO

Mirror Molecules: The Symmetry Rule Life Never Breaks
Video by EMILY BUDER

Most organic molecules have a mirror-image twin. This concept is known as chirality. Yet life only uses one chiral molecule, not the other. The reason for this asymmetry is one of the greatest mysteries of biology. From Louis Pasteur to stereochemistry to the concept of mirror life, here is the science of chirality.

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