Mathematicians are still trying to understand fundamental properties of the Fourier transform, one of their most ubiquitous ...

Columnist Natalie Wolchover checks in with particle physicists more than a decade after the field entered a profound crisis.

Primordial black holes could rewrite our understanding of dark matter and the early universe. A record-breaking detection at ...

Researchers documented the activity of neurons that shape directional navigation as bats explored a remote island off the ...

Alexander Bobenko has spent the past 20 years chewing on mathematical doughnuts. In the 2000s, he tried to prove that compact ...

The math of data structures helps us understand how different storage systems come with different trade-offs between ...

In an unprecedented step, researchers crafted a detailed model compatible with the universe’s accelerated expansion.

In August, a team of mathematicians posted a paper claiming to solve a major problem in algebraic geometry — using entirely alien techniques. It instantly captivated the field, stoking excitement in ...

Sitting outside a Catholic church on the French Riviera, Carlo Rovelli jutted his head forward and backward, imitating a pigeon trotting by. Pigeons bob their heads, he told me, not only to stabilize ...

Imagine a town with two widget merchants. Customers prefer cheaper widgets, so the merchants must compete to set the lowest price. Unhappy with their meager profits, they meet one night in a ...

In cellular automata, simple rules create elaborate structures. Now researchers can start with the structures and reverse-engineer the rules. Alexander Mordvintsev showed me two clumps of pixels on ...