Diffusion models generate incredible images by learning to reverse the process that, among other things, causes ink to spread through water. The post The Physics Principle That Inspired Modern AI Art first appeared on Quanta Magazine
The thorny thought experiment has been turned into a real experiment — one that physicists use to probe the physics of information. The post How Maxwell’s Demon Continues to Startle Scientists first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Unusual proteins that can quickly fold into different shapes provide cells with a novel regulatory mechanism. The post Some Proteins Change Their Folds to Perform Different Jobs first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Researchers explore a loophole that extracts useful energy from a fluid’s seemingly random motion. The secret? Sugar and asymmetry. The post Swarming Bacteria Create an ‘Impossible’ Superfluid first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Take chemistry, add energy, get life. The first tests of Jeremy England’s provocative origin-of-life hypothesis are in, and they appear to show how order can arise from nothing. The post First Support for a Physics Theory of Life first appeared on Quanta Magazine
As physicists extend the 19th-century laws of thermodynamics to the quantum realm, they’re rewriting the relationships among energy, entropy and information. The post The Quantum Thermodynamics Revolution first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Nature’s large-scale patterns emerge from incomplete surveys that borrow ideas from information theory. The post The Thermodynamic Theory of Ecology first appeared on Quanta Magazine
An MIT physicist has proposed the provocative idea that life exists because the law of increasing entropy drives matter to acquire lifelike physical properties. The post A New Physics Theory of Life first appeared on Quanta Magazine
