Explained: The Carnot Limit
Long before the nature of heat was understood, the fundamental limit of efficiency of heat-based engines was determined
Explained: Monte Carlo simulations
Mathematical technique lets scientists make estimates in a probabilistic world
Explained: Directed evolution
Speeding up protein evolution in the lab can yield useful molecules that nature never intended.
Explained: Thermoelectricity
Turning temperature differences directly into electricity could be an efficient way of harnessing heat that is wasted in cars and power plants.
Explained: Dynamo theory
Recent discoveries raise questions about how small planets can have self-sustaining magnetic fields
Explained: Climate sensitivity
If we double the Earth’s greenhouse gases, how much will the temperature change? That’s what this number tells you.
Explained: Regression analysis
Sure, it’s a ubiquitous tool of scientific research, but what exactly is a regression, and what is its use?
Explained: Radiative forcing
When there’s more energy radiating down on the planet than there is radiating back out to space, something’s going to have to heat up
Explained: Linear and nonlinear systems
Much scientific research across a range of disciplines tries to find linear approximations of nonlinear behaviors. But what does that mean?
Explained: Gallager codes
In 1993, scientists achieved the maximum rate for data transmission — only to find they’d been scooped 30 years earlier by an MIT grad student.
Explained: The Shannon limit
A 1948 paper by Claude Shannon SM ’37, PhD ’40 created the field of information theory — and set its research agenda for the next 50 years.
Explained: The Discrete Fourier Transform
The theories of an early-19th-century French mathematician have emerged from obscurity to become part of the basic language of engineering.
Explained: RNA interference
Exploiting the recently discovered mechanism could allow biologists to develop disease treatments by shutting down specific genes.
Explained: P vs. NP
The most notorious problem in theoretical computer science remains open, but the attempts to solve it have led to profound insights.