Abstractions blog

After years of false starts, a team of computer scientists has found a way to efficiently deduce the Hamiltonian of a physical system at any constant temperature.

Topologists prove two new results that bring some order to the confoundingly difficult study of four-dimensional shapes.

A group of prominent biologists and philosophers announced a new consensus: There’s “a realistic possibility” that insects, octopuses, crustaceans, fish and other overlooked animals experience consciousness.

The prolific researcher found deep connections between randomness and computation and spent a career influencing cryptographers, complexity researchers and more.

Mathematicians have struggled to prove Falconer’s Conjecture, a simple, but far-reaching, hypothesis about the distances between points. They’re finally getting close.

The timing of the total eclipse on April 8, 2024, will be known to within a second, thousands of years after fearful humans first started trying to anticipate these cosmic events.

After a decade out of the spotlight, the brain cells once alleged to explain empathy, autism and theory of mind are being refined and redefined.

Mathematicians are using topological abstractions to find places where it’s hard to vote.

The French mathematician spent decades developing a set of tools now widely used for taming random processes.