Natalie Wolchover

A wonderful piece of writing here by @walkingthedot. The path integral, Feynman's way of doing quantum physics, is also a philosophy about how the world is — all while being a mathematical monstrosity.

Is a quantum computer “realizing” a quantum system when it “simulates” it? Was that “actual” wormhole teleportation? How do QC experiments help us? I was sent this 2017 talk/discussion among physicists about these shiny new questions. Worth a watch:

They can photograph black holes, but the Mpemba effect brings physicists to their knees! Read @adamspacemann on the latest efforts to determine whether hot water really freezes faster than cold water, as Erasto Mpemba seemed to discover in the 1960s.

When unit parts have a particular mathematical relationship with adjacent parts, they collectively form a wheel that spontaneously rolls uphill. @benbenbrubaker describes with uncommon clarity how an abstract math idea underlies a robotics breakthrough.

Contextuality is increasingly seen as the defining feature of quantum systems, yet it's studied and talked about far less than other spooky aspects of the quantum world. Read @mccornut's superb explainer, which left me eager to learn more:

I loved @rboyle31's lyrical piece about how unusual we now know our 8 planets to be. New theories have emerged to explain the making of the planets here and elsewhere. For instance, you can thank Saturn for our existence. I always knew Saturn was the best.

This is such a cool story about an attempt to "reinvent the whole computing paradigm," by exploiting the calculating capacity of nature itself. @walkingthedot also explains so beautifully how neural networks work, and why anything can act as one:

Our brains encode our uncertainty about a memory along with the memory itself. Very nice article on this new finding by @vero_greenwood, who gets into how people can be so bad at estimating probability despite doing it reliably at a fundamental level.

Thanks for all this brilliant reporting and writing, Phil. So cool that, aside from these many great articles and three (3!) books, you did a bit of actual astronomy too