Uniting our everyday world with the quantum realm requires tackling titanic numbers. A single penny contains 2 billion trillion atoms with a total of 70 billion trillion electrons whizzing around them. The behavior of those electrons produces many of the penny’s properties, such as its conductivity and even its shininess.
Story for the 2018 Simons Foundation annual report.
International collaboration, swirling galaxies and an exploding steam pipe all defined summer 2018 for attendees of the Kavli Summer Program in Astrophysics, hosted at the Flatiron Institute’s Center for Computational Astrophysics (CCA).
Story for the 2018 Simons Foundation annual report.
The universe has an inherent elegance illuminated by mathematics. A single class of equations can help describe how planets spin around a star, how blood cells flow through a vein, and how electrons travel along a wire.
Story for the 2018 Simons Foundation annual report.
Leveraging artificial intelligence techniques, researchers have demonstrated that mutations in so-called ‘junk’ DNA can cause autism. The study, published May 27 in Nature Genetics, is the first to functionally link such mutations to the neurodevelopmental condition.
Precise experiments have revealed for the first time how Lou Gehrig’s disease, or amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), progresses on a genetic and cellular level. The work opens new avenues for developing potential treatments for the disease, which affects around 450,000 people worldwide.
The Simons Foundation is delighted to announce Michael Shelley as the new director of the Flatiron Institute’s Center for Computational Biology (CCB). Shelley, a distinguished applied mathematician, will lead the center in its mission of better understanding complex biological processes through the development and application of computational tools and theory.
Black holes consume everything that falls within their reach, yet astronomers have spotted jets of particles fleeing from black holes at nearly the speed of light. New computer simulations have revealed what gives these particles such speed: cosmic robbery.
The American Astronomical Society has awarded its 2019 Annie Jump Cannon Award in Astronomy to Blakesley Burkhart, an associate research scientist at the Flatiron Institute’s Center for Computational Astrophysics.
As New Yorkers headed to the polls on November 6, nearly four dozen high school students headed to the Flatiron Institute to learn about careers in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM).
Astronomers have discovered a ghostlike galaxy that looms large on the fringes of the Milky Way. The newly discovered dwarf galaxy, dubbed Antlia 2, stretches roughly 19,000 light-years across. That makes it the vastest satellite galaxy of the Milky Way. Despite its enormous extent, though, Antlia 2 is incredibly faint and barren: It is by far the sparsest galaxy ever seen in the universe, its discoverers report in a paper posted November 13 at arXiv.org.