Natalie Wolchover

Top women in mathematics and physics discuss how they got to where they are — and why there aren’t more of them.

Computational physicist Sharon Glotzer is uncovering the rules by which complex collective phenomena emerge from simple building blocks.

A decades-old method called the “bootstrap” is enabling new discoveries about the geometry underlying all quantum theories.

Physicists are closing the door on an intriguing loophole around the quantum phenomenon Einstein called “spooky action at a distance.”

Life might have originated in droplets that behave surprisingly like living cells.

Researchers have discovered that simple “chemically active” droplets grow to the size of cells and spontaneously divide, suggesting they might have evolved into the first living cells.

Geochemical signals from deep inside Earth are beginning to shed light on the planet’s first 50 million years, a formative period long viewed as inaccessible to science.

Physicists have failed to find disintegrating protons, throwing into limbo the beloved theory that the forces of nature were unified at the beginning of time.

The effort to unify quantum mechanics and general relativity means reconciling totally different notions of time.