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

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

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 ...

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 ...

Anomalous” heat flow, which at first appears to violate the second law of thermodynamics, gives physicists a way to detect ...

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 ...

In the 1960s, the Soviet climatologist and mathematician Mikhail Budyko set out to investigate the potential future of a planet on the brink of nuclear Armageddon. He started by looking some 600 ...

Amid the chaos of revolutionary France, one man’s mathematical obsession gave way to a calculation that now underpins much of mathematics and physics. The calculation, called the Fourier transform, ...

The proof, known to be so hard that a mathematician once offered 10 martinis to whoever could figure it out, connects quantum mechanics to infinitely intricate mathematical structures. Hofstadter was ...

Imagine that someone gives you a list of five numbers: 1, 6, 21, 107 and — wait for it — 47,176,870. Can you guess what comes next? If you’re stumped, you’re not alone. These are the first five busy ...