History of science

In the late 19th century, Karl Weierstrass invented a fractal-like function that was decried as nothing less than a “deplorable evil.” In time, it would transform the foundations of mathematics.

Exactly 200 years ago, a French engineer introduced an idea that would quantify the universe’s inexorable slide into decay. But entropy, as it’s currently understood, is less a fact about the world than a reflection of our growing ignorance. Embracing that truth is leading to a rethink of everything from rational decision-making to the limits of machines.

Our computers can get a lot more done when they share the load with other machines.

Born poor in colonial India and dead at 32, Ramanujan had fantastical, out-of-nowhere visions that continue to shape the field today.

Until his dying days, the giant of 20th-century physics obsessed over the underpinnings of space and time, and how we can all share the same version of them.

Long explored but infrequently embraced, base 3 computing may yet find a home in cybersecurity.

You don’t need 0s and 1s to perform computations, and in some cases it’s better to avoid them.

Three years ago, Google’s AlphaFold pulled off the biggest artificial intelligence breakthrough in science to date, accelerating molecular research and kindling deep questions about why we do science.

Useful mathematical concepts, like the number line, can linger for millennia before they are rigorously defined.