In the late 19th century, Karl Weierstrass invented a fractal-like function that was decried as nothing less than a “deplorable evil.” In time, it would transform the foundations of mathematics.

Solomon Adams is a freelance journalist who covers mathematics, culture and other topics. He graduated from Yale University in 2024 with a bachelor’s degree in math and philosophy.

Individual cells in the brain light up for specific ideas. These concept neurons, once known as “Jennifer Aniston cells,” ...

Heat is supposed to ruin anything it touches. But physicists have shown that an idealized form of magnetism is heatproof.

A new proof marks the first progress in decades on important cases of the so-called kissing problem. Getting there meant ...

Inside the proton, quarks and gluons shift and morph their properties in ways that physicists are still struggling to understand. Rithya Kunnawalkam Elayavalli brings to the problem a perspective ...

Learning a language can’t be that hard — every baby in the world manages to do it in a few years. Figuring out how the process works is another story. Linguists have devised elaborate theories to ...

The mathematician and author Steven Strogatz and the astrophysicist and author Janna Levin interview leading researchers about the great scientific and mathematical questions of our time.

Common sense has been viewed as one of the hardest challenges in AI. That said, ChatGPT4 has acquired what some believe is an impressive sense of humanity. How is this possible? Listen to this week’s ...

The security system that underlies the internet makes use of a curious fact: You can broadcast part of your encryption to make your information much more secure.