Explainers

The mathematician Amie Wilkinson explains how dynamics lets mathematicians explore the fundamentals of change.

Edward O. Wilson, professor emeritus at Harvard University, is the influential naturalist and evolutionary theorist who introduced the concept of “sociobiology,” as well as one of the world’s leading experts on ants. Here, he explains the relevance of evolved insect behaviors to human nature.

The physicist Richard Feynman devised a system of line drawings that simplified calculations of particle interactions and helped rescue the field of quantum electrodynamics.

The lauded astronomer Jim Gunn explains how a new spectrograph he is building will advance astronomy.

Jennifer Dunne of the Santa Fe Institute explains how reconstructions of food webs in past ecosystems help ecologists understand both the unusual niche of humans and new clues to a more sustainable civilization.

Jennifer Doudna, one of the coinventors of CRISPR technology, discusses how her work on bacterial defenses against viruses helped lead to a discovery with a revolutionary impact on biological research.

Priyamvada Natarajan explains the role of supermassive black holes in the structure and evolution of the universe.

Physicists use the Navier-Stokes equations to describe fluid flows, taking into account viscosity, velocity, pressure and density. But because of turbulence in fluids, proving that the equations always make sense is one of the hardest problems in physics and mathematics.

Carolina Araujo describes the effort to build a network of women mathematicians in Brazil.