The math of even the simplest ocean waves is notoriously uncooperative. A team of Italian mathematicians has made major ...

The same pulling force that causes “tears” in a glass of wine also shapes embryos. It’s another example of how genes exploit ...

The leading approach to the simplex method, a widely used technique for balancing complex logistical constraints, can’t get ...

The amplituhedron, a shape at the heart of particle physics, appears to be deeply connected to the mathematics of paper ...

Researchers have developed an AI system that learns about the world via videos and demonstrates a notion of “surprise” when presented with information that goes against the knowledge it has gleaned.

Anna Demming is a freelance science writer and editor based in Bristol, United Kingdom. She has a doctorate in physics from King’s College London, where her research focused on ...

Naomi Saphra thinks that most research into language models focuses too much on the finished product. She’s mining the history of their training for insights into why these systems work the way they ...

Nearly 170 years ago, a scientist named Eunice Foote discovered a fundamental truth about the gases that surround us. In her home laboratory in New York, she filled one glass cylinder with carbon ...

In the third century BCE, Apollonius of Perga asked how many circles one could draw that would touch three given circles at exactly one point each. It would take 1,800 years to prove the answer: eight ...

Detecting a graviton — the hypothetical particle thought to carry the force of gravity — is the ultimate physics experiment. Conventional wisdom, however, says it can’t be done. According to one ...

Is the universe infinite, Aristotle asked in 350 BCE, “or is this an impossibility? The decision … is … all-important to our search for the truth.” The Greek ...