The reason we can gracefully glide on an ice-skating rink or clumsily slip on an icy sidewalk is that the surface of ice is ...

Is language core to thought, or a separate process? For 15 years, the neuroscientist Ev Fedorenko has gathered evidence of a ...

Researchers have used metamathematical techniques to show that certain theorems that look superficially distinct are in fact ...

The supercollider is now being used to explore quantum phenomena, including a “magic” form of quantum entanglement.

In mathematics, ubiquitous objects called groups display nearly magical powers. Though they’re defined by just a few rules, groups help illuminate an astonishing range of mysteries. They can tell you ...

Is language core to thought, or a separate process? For 15 years, the neuroscientist Ev Fedorenko has gathered evidence of a language network in the human brain — and has found some parallels to LLMs.

Integer linear programming can help find the answer to a variety of real-world problems. Now researchers have found a much faster way to do it. Inspired by the results of a game-playing neural network ...

Descriptive set theorists study the niche mathematics of infinity. Now, they’ve shown that their problems can be rewritten in the concrete language of algorithms.

In work that has been 30 years in the making, mathematicians have proved a major part of a profound mathematical vision called the Langlands program. A group of nine mathematicians has proved the ...

For three decades, researchers hunted in vain for new elementary particles that would have explained why nature looks the way it does. As physicists confront that failure, they’re reexamining a ...

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 ...

Physicists have deduced subtle hints that the mysterious “dark” energy that drives the universe to expand faster and faster may be slightly weakening with time. It’s a finding that has the potential ...