Unpredictability can help computer scientists solve otherwise intractable problems.

A novel type of “jumping gene” may explain why the genomes of complex cells aren’t all equally stuffed with noncoding sequences.

The four-color problem is simple to explain, but its complex proof continues to be both celebrated and despised.

There once was a cosmic seed that sprouted the Milky Way galaxy. Astronomers have discovered its last surviving remnants.

The prize-winning geometer feels most fulfilled when exploring the fertile ground where constraint meets creation.

Learn why the quadratic formula works and why quadratics are easier to solve than cubics.

Last fall, a team of physicists announced that they had teleported a qubit through a holographic wormhole in a quantum computer. Now another group suggests that’s not quite what happened.

The American researcher was recognized for his central role in inventing, standardizing and commercializing the ubiquitous networking technology.

Can mathematics handle things that are essentially the same without being exactly equal? Category theorist Eugenia Cheng and host Steven Strogatz discuss the power and pleasures of abstraction.