Explainers

In 2022, mathematicians solved a centuries-old geometry question, proved the best way to minimize the surface area of clusters of up to five bubbles and proved a sweeping statement about how structure emerges in random sets and graphs.

Wormholes were first envisioned almost a century ago, but it would take a number of theoretical leaps and a “crazy” team of experimentalists to build one on a quantum computer.

Daniel Larsen wouldn’t let go of an old question about Carmichael numbers. “It was just stubbornness on my part,” he said.

Richard Rusczyk, founder of Art of Problem Solving, discusses how to bring out the joy, creativity and beauty in math.

Condensed matter physics is the most active field of contemporary physics and has yielded some of the biggest breakthroughs of the past century.  Now for the first time, Jie Shan and Fai Mak, a husband-and-wife team at Cornell University, have figured out a way to create artificial atoms in the lab, opening the door to a new era in research.

As an evolutionary biochemist at University College London, Nick Lane explores the deep mystery of how life evolved on Earth. His hypothesis that life started with primitive metabolic reactions in deep-sea hydrothermal vents illuminates the outsized role that energy may have played in shaping evolution.

Rutgers University mathematician Alex Kontorovich takes us on a journey through the continents of mathematics to learn about the awe-inspiring symmetries at the heart of the Langlands program.

Astrophysicists and data scientists on the Event Horizon Telescope team give the backstory behind their new image of Sagittarius A*, the Milky Way’s central supermassive black hole.

Leslie Lamport talks about the importance of programming instead of coding, how he developed distributed systems and his favorite algorithm.