2021’s Biggest Breakthroughs in Physics

Carlo Rovelli discusses his research on time and his view that it should not appear in the quantum theory of gravity.

In a once-in-a-generation breakthrough, the mathematicians Hong Wang and Joshua Zahl proved the three-dimensional Kakeya conjecture.

Robert Hazen and Michael Wong discuss their bold proposal for a new law of nature, centered around the idea that information is as fundamental to the cosmos as mass, energy or charge.

Most organic molecules have a mirror-image twin. This concept is known as chirality. Yet life only uses one chiral molecule, not the other. The reason for this asymmetry is one of the greatest mysteries of biology.

Mathematician Maggie Miller explores the strange and fascinating world of 4D topology — the study of shapes, or manifolds, that resemble flat Euclidean space when viewed up close.

A team of amateurs recently came together in an online collaboration called the Busy Beaver Challenge to pin down the value of BB(5), the fifth “busy beaver” number — a notoriously difficult problem in theoretical computer science.

Physicist Mario Krenn uses artificial intelligence to inspire and accelerate scientific progress.

After 30 years of effort, mathematicians finally proved a major component of the ambitious Langlands program.

Neuroscience research into people with aphantasia is now revealing how imagination works and demonstrating the sweeping variety in our subjective experiences.