The bacterial flagellar motor is finally understood after 50 years. In its workings, columnist Natalie Wolchover finds the ...

Some quantum cryptographers want to find ways to keep messages secret even if the rules of quantum mechanics don’t hold. The ...

Our tales of AI developing the will to survive, commandeer resources, and manipulate people say more about us than they do about language models. In fall 2024, the best-selling author and historian ...

Decades of weird experimental results appeared to support the existence of the sterile neutrino, a hypothetical particle that ...

Some 30 years ago, the mathematician Peter Shor took a niche physics project — the dream of building a computer based on the counterintuitive rules of quantum mechanics — and shook the world. Shor ...

Those changes will be contested, in math as in other academic disciplines wrestling with AI’s impact. As AI models become a ...

Physicists spotted a “terribly exciting” new black hole, doubled down on weakening dark energy, and debated the meaning of quantum mechanics.

Amanda Gefter is a writer specializing in fundamental physics and cosmology and author of the book Trespassing on Einstein’s Lawn (Bantam, January 2014).

The math of data structures helps us understand how different storage systems come with different trade-offs between resources such as time and memory.

Two research groups say they have significantly reduced the amount of qubits and time required to crack common online security technologies. A New Complexity Theory for the Quantum Age “Anomalous” ...

Decades of weird experimental results appeared to support the existence of the sterile neutrino, a hypothetical particle that would solve multiple mysteries. But recent experiments have killed hope of ...