Physics

Henry Yuen is developing a new mathematical language to describe problems whose inputs and outputs aren’t ordinary numbers.

Columnist Philip Ball thinks the phenomenon of decoherence might finally bridge the quantum-classical divide.

Today’s observatories document every pulse and flash in the sky each night. To understand how the cosmos has changed over longer periods, scientists rely on a more tactile technology.

Columnist Natalie Wolchover checks in with particle physicists more than a decade after the field entered a profound crisis.

A $1 million prize awaits anyone who can show where the math of fluid flow breaks down. With specially trained AI systems, researchers have found a slew of new candidates in simpler versions of the problem.

Try as they might, scientists can’t truly rid a space or an object of its energy. But what “zero-point energy” really means is up for interpretation.

Physicists spotted a “terribly exciting” new black hole, doubled down on weakening dark energy, and debated the meaning of quantum mechanics.

Years ago, an audacious Fields medalist outlined a sweeping program that, he claimed, could be used to resolve a major problem in algebraic geometry. Other mathematicians had their doubts. Now he says he has a proof.

A newly proposed explanation for the slipperiness of ice has revived a centuries-long debate.