Ten years ago, researchers proved that adding full memory can theoretically aid computation. They’re just now beginning to ...

Quantum calculations amount to sophisticated estimates. But in 1931, Hans Bethe intuited precisely how a chain of particles ...

The library sorting problem is used across computer science for organizing far more than just books. A new solution is less than a page-width away from the theoretical ideal. Can AI Models Show Us How ...

Under the sea ice during the Arctic’s pitch-black polar night, cells power photosynthesis on the lowest light levels ever observed in nature. Most of life’s engines run on sunlight. Photons filter ...

A new proof reveals the answer to the decades-old “moving sofa” problem. It highlights how even the simplest optimization problems can have counterintuitive answers. If you’ve ever moved into a new ...

A young computer scientist and two colleagues show that searches within data structures called hash tables can be much faster than previously deemed possible.

Imagine you’re on a first date, sipping a martini at a bar. You eat an olive and patiently listen to your date tell you about his job at a bank. Your brain is processing this scene, in part, by ...

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.

Is the universe infinite, Aristotle asked in 350 BCE, “or is this an impossibility? The decision … is … all-important to our search for the truth.” The Greek ...

Create a reading list by clicking the Read Later icon next to the articles you wish to save.

DNA is often compared to a written language. The metaphor leaps out: Like letters of the alphabet, molecules (the nucleotide bases A, T, C and G, for adenine, thymine, cytosine and guanine) are ...