By screening films in a brain scanner, neuroscientists discovered a rich library of neural scripts — from a trip through an airport to a marriage proposal — that form scaffolds for memories of our experiences. The post How ‘Event Scripts’ Structure Our Personal Memories first appeared on Quanta Magazine

Britta Späth has dedicated her career to proving a single, central conjecture. She’s finally succeeded, alongside her partner, Marc Cabanes. The post After 20 Years, Math Couple Solves Major Group Theory Problem first appeared on Quanta Magazine

Ten years ago, researchers proved that adding full memory can theoretically aid computation. They’re just now beginning to understand the implications. The post Catalytic Computing Taps the Full Power of a Full Hard Drive first appeared on Quanta Magazine

A new proof reveals the answer to the decades-old “moving sofa” problem. It highlights how even the simplest optimization problems can have counterintuitive answers. The post The Largest Sofa You Can Move Around a Corner first appeared on Quanta Magazine

Quantum calculations amount to sophisticated estimates. But in 1931, Hans Bethe intuited precisely how a chain of particles would behave — an insight that had far-reaching consequences. The post How Hans Bethe Stumbled Upon Perfect Quantum Theories first appeared on Quanta Magazine