phase transitions

To tame urban traffic, the computer scientist Carlos Gershenson finds that letting transportation systems adapt and self-organize often works better than trying to predict and control them.

At the molecular level, glass looks like a liquid. But an artificial neural network has picked up on hidden structure in its molecules that may explain why glass is rigid like a solid.

One hundred years after it was proposed, the Ising model is used to understand everything from magnets to brains.

While studying materials made from DNA-coated nanoparticles, researchers found a new form of this matter: lattices in which smaller particles roam like electrons in metallic bonds.

Two teams of physicists have created the “Higgs mode” – a link between particle physics and the physics of matter. The work could help researchers understand the strange behavior of deeply quantum systems.

A complete classification could lead to a wealth of new materials and technologies. But some exotic phases continue to resist understanding.

By reimagining the kinks and folds of origami as atoms in a lattice, researchers are uncovering strange behavior hiding in simple structures.

The new experiments suggest that simple models can explain the behavior of thousands of interacting organisms.

The subtle mechanics of densely packed cells may help explain why some cancerous tumors stay put while others break off and spread through the body.