explainers

The thorny thought experiment has been turned into a real experiment — one that physicists use to probe the physics of information.

Despite finding no specific examples, researchers have proved the existence of a pervasive kind of prime number so delicate that changing any of its infinite digits renders it composite.

The zoo of spontaneously emerging particlelike entities known as quasiparticles has grown quickly and become more and more exotic. Here are a few of the most curious and potentially useful examples.

A recent paper set the fastest record for multiplying two matrices. But it also marks the end of the line for a method researchers have relied on for decades to make improvements.

Researchers are tracking the different strains of SARS-CoV-2 and studying how they spread through our population and our bodies.

The relationships among the properties of flexible shapes have fascinated mathematicians for centuries.

Today’s information age is only possible thanks to the groundbreaking work of a lone genius.

The p-adics form an infinite collection of number systems based on prime numbers. They’re at the heart of modern number theory.

Renormalization has become perhaps the single most important advance in theoretical physics in 50 years.