Quanta Magazine

Origami Patterns Solve a Major Physics Riddle | Quanta Magazine The amplituhedron, a shape at the heart of particle physics, appears to be deeply connected to the mathematics of paper folding.

A recent proof has revealed a deep connection between origami and particle collisions.

‘It’s a Mess’: A Brain-Bending Trip to Quantum Theory’s 100th Birthday Party | Quanta Magazine Hundreds of physicists (and a few journalists) journeyed to Helgoland, the birthplace of quantum mechanics, and grappled with what they have and haven’t learned about reality.

This summer, hundreds of quantum physicists including Devoret gathered on the remote German island of Helgoland, the birthplace of quantum mechanics, to reflect on this question and celebrate a century of quantum research.
www.quantamagazine.org/its-a-mess-a...

If all objects are quantum mechanical — including big objects like ourselves — how does the reality we experience emerge from the bizarre quantum behavior of electrons and other particles?

But in the mid-80s, Clarke, Devoret, and Martinis were pursuing a fundamental question: Is quantum mechanics a universal theory that applies to all objects big and small? Their work, and subsequent work, suggest that it is.
www.quantamagazine.org/how-big-can-...

Quantum Computers Cross Critical Error Threshold | Quanta Magazine In a first, researchers have shown that adding more “qubits” to a quantum computer can make it more resilient. It’s an essential step on the long road to practical applications.

Martinis went on to lead Google’s effort to build quantum computers. There, he helped advance quantum error correction — a way to make the computer’s calculations more reliable.
www.quantamagazine.org/quantum-comp...

These superconducting quantum gadgets lie at the heart of some of today’s most sophisticated quantum computers, where they act as “qubits” that can easily handle certain calculations that are harder for conventional computers.
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In the 1980s at UC Berkeley, Devoret and Martinis built devices with two superconducting wires separated by a material that blocked electricity. Nevertheless, electrons were able to “tunnel” through the barrier — a purely quantum phenomenon.
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Nobel Prize in Physics 2025 The Nobel Prize in Physics 2025 was awarded jointly to John Clarke, Michel H. Devoret and John M. Martinis "for the discovery of macroscopic quantum mechanical tunnelling and energy quantisation in an...

John Clarke, Michel H. Devoret and John M. Martinis have won the Nobel Prize in physics for showing that quantum mechanics describes the behavior of objects much larger than atoms.
www.nobelprize.org/prizes/physi...

A Thermometer for Measuring Quantumness | Quanta Magazine “Anomalous” heat flow, which at first appears to violate the second law of thermodynamics, gives physicists a way to detect quantum entanglement without destroying it.

A new "quantum demon” may allow information to be processed in ways that classical physics does not permit.

Any knot can be mathematically characterized by the steps needed to turn it into a simple loop. www.quantamagazine.org/a-simple-way...

How One AI Model Creates a Physical Intuition of Its Environment | Quanta Magazine The V-JEPA system uses ordinary videos to understand the physics of the real world.

An AI model called V-JEPA uses “latent representations” to intuit the physics of the world around it.

After centuries of effort, scientists have largely succeeded in digitally reconstructing the Earth in order to ask how its climate will change in the future. Now, not liking the answer, some are reaching to unplug the machine.
www.quantamagazine.org/how-climate-...

Origami Patterns Solve a Major Physics Riddle | Quanta Magazine The amplituhedron, a shape at the heart of particle physics, appears to be deeply connected to the mathematics of paper folding.

A recent proof has revealed a deep connection between origami and particle collisions. www.quantamagazine.org/origami-patt...

An unexpected challenge at the start of Naomi Saphra’s career shaped her research as a computer scientist. www.quantamagazine.org/to-understan...

How One AI Model Creates a Physical Intuition of Its Environment | Quanta Magazine The V-JEPA system uses ordinary videos to understand the physics of the real world.

Babies love peek-a-boo because it plays with their developing notion of object permanence. V-JEPA, an AI model recently built at Meta, similarly exhibits “surprise” when its predictions of the real world fail to match its observations.

A Thermometer for Measuring Quantumness | Quanta Magazine “Anomalous” heat flow, which at first appears to violate the second law of thermodynamics, gives physicists a way to detect quantum entanglement without destroying it.

Quantum physicists have figured out a way to diagnose the presence of quantum effects without destroying them.

Climate change contains feedback loops. A warmer atmosphere, for example, can hold more water, which in turn doubles the total warming and draws even more water into the air.
www.quantamagazine.org/the-climate-...

This year, the physicist Patryk Lipka-Bartosik and his colleagues built a thermometer of sorts to spy on entangled qubits inside quantum computers and other quantum systems. www.quantamagazine.org/a-thermomete...

How Humanity Amplified Life’s Quest for Energy | Quanta Magazine A planetary perspective on the relationship between life and energy, and the emergence of a life form whose influence extends across the entire biosphere — presenting us with an awesome opportunity.

The creation of order inevitably leads to disorder. On Earth, the same system that made life has been disrupted because of it.

How One AI Model Creates a Physical Intuition of Its Environment | Quanta Magazine The V-JEPA system uses ordinary videos to understand the physics of the real world.

An AI model called V-JEPA is capable of “intuiting” the physical properties of the real world, gaining a sense of object permanence, the constancy of shape and color, and the effects of gravity. @anilananth.bsky.social reports:

www.quantamagazine.org/how-one-ai-m...

A Thermometer for Measuring Quantumness | Quanta Magazine “Anomalous” heat flow, which at first appears to violate the second law of thermodynamics, gives physicists a way to detect quantum entanglement without destroying it.

A new trick for detecting quantum entanglement is conducted at a surprisingly large scale.

www.quantamagazine.org/the-quantum-...

The mathematicians Kirsten Wickelgren and Jesse Kass have made a good team since the early 2000s. Today, they’re working on extending geometry into other fields. www.quantamagazine.org/new-math-rev...

Photos Capture the Extreme, Beautiful Work of Climate Science | Quanta Magazine Building an accurate model of Earth’s climate requires a lot of data. Photography reveals the extreme efforts scientists have undertaken to measure gases, glaciers, clouds and more.

Day after day, the desire to understand the planet compels people all over the world to don their snowsuits, wet suits and business suits in the service of climate science. Explore their efforts in Quanta’s photo gallery:

A Thermometer for Measuring Quantumness | Quanta Magazine “Anomalous” heat flow, which at first appears to violate the second law of thermodynamics, gives physicists a way to detect quantum entanglement without destroying it.

We all know that hot coffee cools down. But quantum mechanics can enable heat to flow the “wrong” way, making hot objects hotter and cold objects colder. Now physicists think this might have an ingenious use. Philip Ball reports: www.quantamagazine.org/a-thermomete...

As a grad student, the biologist Yitzhi “Patrick” Cai helped program 𝘌. 𝘤𝘰𝘭𝘪 bacteria to become a biosensor for arsenic contamination in drinking water. Today, he is leading a global effort to build the first-ever synthetic eukaryotic genome. www.quantamagazine.org/hes-gleaning...

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Quanta has covered the study of planet formation for more than a decade. You can explore some of this coverage here: www.quantamagazine.org/stellar-disk...