The reason we can gracefully glide on an ice-skating rink or clumsily slip on an icy sidewalk is that the surface of ice is ...

Is language core to thought, or a separate process? For 15 years, the neuroscientist Ev Fedorenko has gathered evidence of a ...

By combining the language of groups with that of geometry and linear algebra, Marius Sophus Lie created one of math’s most ...

Researchers have used metamathematical techniques to show that certain theorems that look superficially distinct are in fact ...

The supercollider is now being used to explore quantum phenomena, including a “magic” form of quantum entanglement.

All of modern mathematics is built on the foundation of set theory, the study of how to organize abstract collections of objects. But in general, research mathematicians don’t need to think about it ...

Tinkering at their desks with the mathematics of quantum space and time, physicists have discovered a puzzling conundrum. The arcane rules of quantum theory and gravity let them imagine many different ...

The force we experience most intimately remains the most mysterious. Physicists understand how vast migrations of particles called photons light up our homes, and how swarms of “gluon” particles hold ...

Every Tuesday, editor in chief Samir Patel sits down with writers and editors to discuss our most thought-provoking stories in science and math. Audio editions of Quanta’s stories with Susan Valot ...

Mathematicians have broken through a long-standing barrier in the study of “minimizing surfaces,” which play an important role in both math and physics. In the mid-19th century, the Belgian physicist ...