Archive

An unorthodox symbiotic theory about the origin of eukaryotes’ defining characteristic may soon be put to the test.

Has physics reached the limits of what we can discover — or are the possibilities only just beginning?

Physicists plan to leave no stone unturned, checking whether dark matter tickles different types of detectors, nudges starlight, warms planetary cores or even lodges in rocks.

A numerical puzzle, a geometric puzzle and a game of random patterns — all with connections to the legendary mathematician — elicited an enthusiastic response from readers.

An exercise in pure mathematics has led to a wide-ranging theory of how the world comes together.

Struggling with math problems that can’t be solved helps us better understand the ones we can.

Bryna Kra searches for the patterns in sequences of numbers that explain how complicated dynamical systems evolve over time.

Even genes essential for life can be caught in an evolutionary arms race that forces them to change or be replaced.

It has been thought of as many things: a pointlike object, an excitation of a field, a speck of pure math that has cut into reality. But never has physicists’ conception of a particle changed more than it is changing now.