Quantized Columns

As COVID-19 cases continue to increase, our extensive knowledge of other coronaviruses informs our understanding.

Freeman Dyson — physicist, mathematician, writer and idea factory — died on February 28, but his vitality lives on.

How does experience alter our perceptions? This adapted book excerpt from We Know It When We See It describes how the brain’s visual system rewires itself to make the best use of its neural resources.

Finding the best way to approximate the ever-elusive irrational numbers pits the infinitely large against the infinitely small.

Zoonotic diseases like influenza and many coronaviruses start out in animals, but their biological machinery often enables them to jump to humans.

As astronomers get better at finding the comets and asteroids of other stars, they’ll learn more about the universe and our place in it.

The noted mathematician and author Steven Strogatz explains why he wanted to share intimate conversations with leading researchers from diverse fields in his new podcast.

No one knows how to find the smallest shape that can cover all other shapes of a certain width. But high school geometry is getting us closer to an answer.

Smallpox was eradicated relatively quickly, but other diseases have proved harder to eliminate. The reasons are a mix of biology and psychology.