Cryptographers want to know which of five possible worlds we inhabit, which will reveal whether truly secure cryptography is even possible.

Language processing programs are notoriously hard to interpret, but smaller versions can provide important insights into how they work.

The Tonga eruption in January was “basically like Krakatoa 2.” This time, geophysicists could explain the tiny tsunamis that cropped up all over the planet, solving a 139-year-old mystery about Tonga’s predecessor.

For centuries, mathematicians have tried to prove that Euler’s fluid equations can produce nonsensical answers. A new approach to machine learning has researchers betting that “blowup” is near.

Life could use a more expansive genetic code in theory, but new work shows that improving on three-letter codons would be a challenge.

Learn the magic and math of how to win games when your opponent goes first.

A new analysis of W bosons suggests these particles are significantly heavier than predicted by the Standard Model of particle physics.

Steven Strogatz explores the mysteries of knots with the mathematicians Colin Adams and Lisa Piccirillo.

The existence of secure cryptography depends on one of the oldest questions in computational complexity.