Thomas Lin
@7homaslin.com
Super nerd here to spread the joy of learning. 📖 Publisher @quantabooks.org at @simonsfoundation.org 📚 Author list: Terence Tao, David Tong, Kevin Hartnett ⚛️ Founding EIC @quantamagazine.org 💼 Prev @nytimes.com, CASW, CUNY J-School 🚴🏼🎾♟️
New NOVA episode out tonight on how animal bodies evolved, including how cells first teamed up to become multicellular! I show up talking about army ants, which spent the whole take up my shirt biting the hell out of me. If I yelped, we reshot it 🐜 www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/vi...
Terence Tao’s SIX MATH ESSENTIALS publishes in two weeks. The UK edition—SIX MATHS ESSENTIALS—is out today! Order your copy: www.quantabooks.org/books/six-ma...
Six Math Essentials - Quanta Books
The “Mozart of mathematics” invites readers on a brief tour of six core ideas—numbers, algebra, geometry, probability, analysis, and dynamics—that capture the beauty and power of mathematical thinking...
quantabooks.org
“Since the 1970s, Idaho’s criminal and civil laws have allowed parents who belong to Followers of Christ and the state’s other faith-healing sects to pray rather than seek medical care as their children die.”
ProPublica@propublica.org · 2w agoNewborn baby Malachi, whose parents belong to a faith-healing sect that doesn’t believe in medical care, died of preventable and treatable conditions. Thirteen months later, their next newborn, Liam, died from the same things.
Ed Yong’s new book sounds amazing. Just yesterday I asked my fifth grader to read the first chapter of I CONTAIN MULTITUDES. He wrote this chapter summary: The book “I Contain Multitudes” by Ed Yong explains how every living thing evolved from microbes and how they are always close to us. (1/x)
Ed Yong is offline@edyong209.bsky.social · last mo.Briefly popping my head back in to unveil the cover of my upcoming book, LIFE BEYOND MEASURE: Nature's Hidden Wonders at Every Scale. It’ll be out on April 6 in the U.S. and April 29 in the U.K. and you can pre-order it right now! www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/757705... 1/
Learn more about Terence Tao's upcoming events for SIX MATH ESSENTIALS (publishing Nov. 10) in NYC (Pioneer Works), Boston (Harvard Science Center), and Kansas City (The Linda Hall). Read our latest newsletter below and preorder Terry's book here: www.quantabooks.org/books/six-ma...
Six Math Essentials - Quanta Books
The “Mozart of mathematics” invites readers on a brief tour of six core ideas—numbers, algebra, geometry, probability, analysis, and dynamics—that capture the beauty and power of mathematical thinking...
quantabooks.org
Quanta Books@quantabooks.org · 2w agoTerence Tao’s (@teorth.bsky.social) SIX MATH ESSENTIALS publishes on Nov 10, and Terry will be doing book events in NYC, Boston, and Kansas City—read our latest Philomath newsletter to register, and learn more.
Hey, it looks like our The Joy of Why podcast has a serious chance of winning a Signal Award (in the science and education category). if you are a fan of our show, please vote for it – and tell all your friends to do the same! Let's win this thing! 🙏🕺 vote.signalaward.com/PublicVoting...
The Signal Listener's Choice Award needs YOU
I just voted for this finalist to win a Signal Listener's Choice Award. You should too.
vote.signalaward.com
Amazon book reviewers are not always known for their concision, but this reader captured @kevinhartnett.bsky.social’s THE PROOF IN THE CODE (@quantabooks.org / @fsgbooks.bsky.social) in two sentences:
Out today in @nature.com: our review on how single cells evolve into multicellular organisms. With Ozan Bozdag, @kaitong25.bsky.social, Peter Yunker, and @matthewherron.bsky.social. rdcu.be/9ZuiKow9twKa For an overview, check out the video below.
Great explainer, indeed! Also says something about where we are today that “with no assistance from AI” needs to be said.
Sean Carroll@seanmcarroll.bsky.social · 3w agoNeutrino astrophysicist John Beacom has a lovely explainer of the Francis Halzen/IceCube Nobel Prize. medium.com/@beacom.7/ho...
Unsurprisingly, one of the smartest and most thoughtful essays synthesizing what’s happening in math right now comes from @quantamagazine.org’s math editor @jordanacep.bsky.social. Worth reading every word: www.quantamagazine.org/is-ai-the-en...
Is AI the End of Math As We Know It? | Quanta Magazine
Mathematicians are facing the sudden shift with grief, anger, and a desperate search for fresh ideas: “If we don’t adapt, there’s just no more math in 50 years.”
quantamagazine.org
For years, Project 2025 architect Russell Vought has set out to erode our system of checks and balances of power and to concentrate power in the hands of one person: President Trump. Now he’s quietly making it all happen. 🔊 Listen to this episode: propub.li/3TzIyaA
Read today’s @wsj.com book review of THE PROOF IN THE CODE, the definitive story of Lean published this summer by @quantabooks.org + @fsgbooks.bsky.social just as things were heating up in computer-aided mathematics. www.wsj.com/arts-culture...
‘The Proof in the Code’ Review: Lean, Mean Computing Machine
The program called Lean was built to detect bugs in Microsoft’s products. It ended up revolutionizing mathematics.
wsj.com
A fifth measles death in Pennsylvania. Entirely preventable.
Pennsylvania reports fifth measles-related death of the year amid outbreak
Measles outbreak in the state has now reached 39 counties, with 943 confirmed cases and 176 hospitalizations
theguardian.com
NEW: California is teeming with black-market dairies, propped up by consumer demand fueled by misinformation. With evidence against one raw goat milk farm, regulators could have sought punitive action. But that’s not what happened.
A Girl Nearly Died After Drinking Raw Milk. The State Did Little to Punish the Unlicensed Farmer Who Sold It.
California is teeming with black-market dairies, propped up by consumer demand fueled by misinformation. With evidence against one raw goat milk farm, regulators could have sought punitive action. But...
propublica.org
Top story on cover of Sunday @nytimes: “Interviews with more than 30 current and former employees reveal the agency is now tightly controlled by Mr. Kennedy and his associates, and its scientists are finding it increasingly difficult to do their jobs effectively.”
Hey, ProPublica reporter Jake Pearson here. I’m taking over the account to tell you about my new story. For months, I posed as a problem gambler on DraftKings to test the company's "responsible gaming" safeguards. Spoiler alert: They made me a VIP — and I lost $10K. Here's how it all went down. 🧵
For anyone wondering what Navier-Stokes is all about and what the recent proof did and didn’t do, watch @QuantaMagazine’s excellent new explainer video: youtu.be/PsWR1rQEWYo
Why Navier-Stokes Pushes Math and Physics to the Edge
YouTube video by Quanta Magazine
youtu.be
Kennedy Assures Vaccine Skeptics That They Have a ‘Friend at the White House’ www.nytimes.com/2026/09/17/h...
RFK Jr. Assures Vaccine Skeptics They Have a ‘Friend at the White House’
The health secretary spoke at a conference featuring misinformation about vaccines, including a claim that the success of the polio vaccines was a “fraud.”
nytimes.com
Amid OpenAI’s news that they’d solved the Navier-Stokes problem—verified w/ Lean—many mathematicians, including Quanta Books author Terence Tao (@teorth.bsky.social), worry that the rapid pace of AI proofs could short-circuit the main purpose of math: “to increase your understanding of a subject.”
@quantabooks.org just published a new blog post to help make sense of the rapid pace of AI-generated and -assisted mathematics. www.quantabooks.org/is-ai-solvin...
Is AI Solving Math Too Fast?
In a world where AI can rapidly solve longstanding problems like Navier-Stokes, some mathematicians are calling for a more deliberative process to help preserve the field’s core values.
quantabooks.org
Huge congrats to Dr. Emily Levesque, the author of @quantabooks.org’s forthcoming title STARLIGHT IS FALLING!
American Astronomical Society (AAS)@aas.org · 2mo agoThe American Astronomical Society today announced that Dr. Emily Levesque (University of Washington) has been confirmed as the next Editor in Chief of the AAS journals. 🔭https://aas.org/press/emily-levesque-named-editor-chief-aas-journals @publishing.aas.org
Another Pennsylvania #measles death, this time in an unvaccinated 40 year old woman. 3 deaths with less than 700 confirmed cases suggests this outbreak is much larger than reported (no surprise).
Pennsylvania woman dies of measles-related complications, local coroner says
The 40-year-old woman, who was from Jefferson County was unvaccinated, according to the coroner.
washingtonpost.com
In a letter warning of a “severe misalignment of AI in mathematics,” 25 Fields Medalists write: “the push by AI companies to solve mathematical problems as a benchmark is detrimental to the science of mathematics, and to the mathematical community.” Read the letter: mathandai.org
Computer scientist Lance Fortnow connects the dots from the Navier-Stokes announcement to Lean (and @kevinhartnett.bsky.social’s new book THE PROOF IN THE CODE from @quantabooks.org ).
Lance Fortnow@lance.fortnow.com · 2mo agoBoth OpenAI and Alpöge-Buckmaster heavily leaned on Lean in their Navier-Stokes announcements. Is this a new requirement for publishing?
I enjoyed chatting with Susan D'Agostino for @insidehighered.com at the International Congress of Mathematicians in July and hope readers are interested in learning more about the philosophy behind @quantamagazine.org and @quantabooks.org. www.insidehighered.com/opinion/colu...
Quanta’s Thomas Lin Trusts Public Can Handle Complex Ideas
The founding editor built a math and science magazine that high schoolers and Nobel laureates alike read. Now, he’s turned to books.
insidehighered.com
AnthropicAI just announced a formalization of Fermat’s Last Theorem using 13 million lines of Lean code. First on their recommended reading list is @kevinhartnett.bsky.social’s new book THE PROOF IN THE CODE: www.quantabooks.org/books/the-pr... Source: www.anthropic.com/research/for...
@teorth.bsky.social wrote a clear, nontechnical explanation of the Kakeya Conjecture (for which Hong Wang won the Fields Medal in July), why it matters, how it was solved, and future directions, and posted it on the arXiv: arxiv.org/abs/2608.22209
Rotating needles in space: the road to the Kakeya conjecture, and why it matters
A non-technical exposition of the Kakeya conjecture, why it matters, and the road to the solution of this conjecture in three dimensions by Hong Wang and Joshua Zahl.
arxiv.org
Four billion years ago, Earth was a sterile rock. Today it is teeming with life, from simple microbes to extraordinarily complex societies that span the globe. How does that happen? I'm writing a book about the answer: Life Unbounded, from Quanta Books. www.quantabooks.org/books/life-u...
Life Unbounded
In LIFE UNBOUNDED, pioneering evolutionary biologist William C. Ratcliff reveals that every great leap in life’s complexity, from the first cells to human culture, was driven by the same underlying pr...
quantabooks.org
Quanta Books@quantabooks.org · 2mo ago🚨New book announcement! 🚨Evolutionary biologist William C. Ratcliff’s (@wcratcliff.bsky.social) LIFE UNBOUNDED (forthcoming 2029) delivers a sweeping narrative of the emergence of complex life, and how a sterile planet transformed into the rich mosaic of beings on Earth today.
Very excited to be joining forces with the evolutionary biologist @wcratcliff.bsky.social for his first popular science book! You’ll want to bookmark this one.
Quanta Books@quantabooks.org · 2mo ago🚨New book announcement! 🚨Evolutionary biologist William C. Ratcliff’s (@wcratcliff.bsky.social) LIFE UNBOUNDED (forthcoming 2029) delivers a sweeping narrative of the emergence of complex life, and how a sterile planet transformed into the rich mosaic of beings on Earth today.
