Mathematical physics

Explore our surprisingly simple, absurdly ambitious and necessarily incomplete guide to the boundless mathematical universe.

Rogue waves — enigmatic giants of the sea — were thought to be caused by two different mechanisms. But a new idea that borrows from the hinterlands of probability theory has the potential to predict them all.

By exploiting randomness, three mathematicians have proved an elegant law that underlies the chaotic motion of turbulent systems.

A startling experimental discovery about how fluids behave started a wave of important mathematical proofs.

Researchers have spent centuries looking for a scenario in which the Euler fluid equations fail. Now a mathematician has finally found one.

Three physicists stumbled across an unexpected relationship between some of the most ubiquitous objects in math.

In a world seemingly filled with chaos, physicists have discovered new forms of synchronization and are learning how to predict and control them.

Perfect black holes are versatile mathematical tools. Just don’t mistake them for the real thing.

People have known about magnets since ancient times, but the physics of ferromagnetism remains a mystery. Now a familiar puzzle is getting physicists closer to the answer.