Year in Review
2023’s Biggest Breakthroughs in Math
In 2023, mathematicians improved bounds on Ramsey numbers, a central measure of order in graphs; found a new aperiodic monotile; and discovered a new upper bound to the size of sets without 3-term arithmetic progressions.
Read related article
Select Playlist
2023’s Biggest Breakthroughs in Math
2023’s Biggest Breakthroughs in Physics
2023’s Biggest Breakthroughs in Computer Science
2023’s Biggest Breakthroughs in Biology and Neuroscience
2022’s Biggest Breakthroughs in Math
2021’s Biggest Breakthroughs in Math and Computer Science
2021’s Biggest Breakthroughs in Physics
2021’s Biggest Breakthroughs in Biology
2020’s Biggest Breakthroughs in Biology
2020’s Biggest Breakthroughs in Math and Computer Science
2020’s Biggest Breakthroughs in Physics
Explore All Videos
Neil Johnson: A Physicist Who Models ISIS and the Alt-Right
Neil Johnson on the physics of collective human behavior.
Svitlana Mayboroda: Taming Rogue Waves
Svitlana Mayboroda describes how the landscape function helps solve the mystery of wave localization.
Jay Pasachoff: Eclipse Hunter Reveals the Science That Can Only Be Done in the Dark
Jay Pasachoff explains what scientists can learn during a total solar eclipse.
Andrea Ghez: Black-Hole Hunter Takes Aim at Einstein
In this 2017 interview, the UCLA astrophysicist Andrea Ghez explains how tracking the movement of stars revealed the existence of a supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way galaxy.
Jessica Flack: How Nature Solves Problems Through Computation
Jessica Flack describes the special challenges of applying collective computation to the understanding of complex biological systems.
Purvesh Khatri: More Data — the Dirtier the Better
Purvesh Khatri learned that by working with ‘messy’ clinical data sets, he could find genes that the human body expresses in response to diverse forms of a disease.
Journey to the Birth of the Solar System
Join David Kaplan on a virtual-reality tour showing how the sun, the Earth and the other planets came to be.
Tim Maudlin: A Defense of the Reality of Time
Tim Maudlin explains how math has led physicists to believe some very strange things about the nature of time.
John Novembre: A Map of Human History, Hidden in DNA
John Novembre explains how he uses genomic data to map human history.