For decades, mathematicians have struggled to understand matrices that reflect both order and randomness, like those that ...

The new science of “emergent misalignment” explores how PG-13 training data — insecure code, superstitious numbers or even ...

The effects of insufficient water are felt by every cell in the body, but it’s the brain that manifests our experience of ...

Strong new evidence suggests that primordial material from the planet’s center is somehow making its way out. Continent-size ...

Results from neural networks support the idea that brains are “prediction machines” — and that they work that way to conserve energy.

A canonical problem in computer science is to find the shortest route to every point in a network. A new approach beats the classic algorithm taught in textbooks.

By treating Earth as a topological insulator — a state of quantum matter — physicists found a powerful explanation for the movements of the planet’s air and seas.

Researchers say we’re on the cusp of “GoPro physics,” where a camera can point at an event and an algorithm can identify the underlying physics equation.

An Infinity of Infinities Yes, infinity comes in many sizes. In 1873, the German mathematician Georg Cantor shook math to the core when he discovered that the “real” numbers that fill the number line ...

Artificial intelligence software is designing novel experimental protocols that improve upon the work of human physicists, although the humans are still “doing a lot of baby-sitting.” ...

Is the universe flat and infinite, or something more complex? We can’t say for sure, but a new search strategy is mapping out the subtle signals that would reveal if the universe had a shape.