Natalie Wolchover

Decades of confounding experiments have physicists considering a startling possibility: The universe might not make sense.

A radical theory predicting the existence of “time crystals” — perpetual motion objects that break the symmetry of time — is being put to the test.

New data collected by mathematicians and oceanographers in the frigid waters of the Southern Ocean could dramatically improve climate models.

Glass and other strange materials have long confounded textbook definitions of what it means to be solid. Now, two groups of physicists propose a new solution to the riddle.

In an increasingly interconnected world, scientists are seeking safeguards against catastrophic cascades of failure like stock market crashes and widespread blackouts.

Three “extremely large telescopes” poised to begin observations within a decade could help answer some of the universe’s oldest and best-kept secrets.

As the role of computers in pure mathematics grows, researchers debate their reliability.

All complex correlated systems, from Arctic melt ponds to the Internet, appear to be governed by the same math as a random matrix.

Game theorists have developed a new model of communication among animals. It suggests evolution will produce a situation in which members of a species are honest most of the time, but not always.