The collective electrical activity of many neurons can be seen as waves propagating through the brain from one region to the ...

In my first months as a physics journalist nearly a decade ago, I kept running into an inscrutable string of characters: AdS/CFT. Thoroughly intimidated, I decided to just ignore it. But I couldn’t ...

The late Ronald Graham wore two hats. He was a renowned mathematician, at one time president of the American Mathematical Society. He was also a serious juggler, and president of the International ...

Sarah Demers, chair of the physics department at Yale University, sees the potential for large language models to both help and harm her field. Are We Thinking Correctly About AI Intelligence?

For the first time in 30 years, computer scientists have found a better way to allocate objects evenly between two groups. Computer scientist Melanie Mitchell discusses why artificial intelligence ...

The theoretical computer scientist behind the influential Unique Games Conjecture delights in the wonders of New York’s Washington Square Park, where he ponders the impossible.

A straightforward conjecture about runners moving around a track turns out to be equivalent to many complex mathematical questions. Three new proofs mark the first significant progress on the problem ...

In the first episode of the new season of ‘The Joy of Why,’ Nobel Laureate Jennifer Doudna discusses how she discovered CRISPR’s genome-editing power, the breakthroughs and hurdles during its ...

Two mathematicians have proved that a straightforward question — how hard is it to untie a knot? — has a complicated answer. Three high schoolers and their mentor revisited a century-old theorem to ...

A simple scaling law brings order to the chaos of flowing water, rock, and sediment. New findings have extended the law even further. We Know Simple Fluids Can Flow. Turns Out, Some Can Fracture.

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 ...