“The parentheses feel artificial.” The octonions’ seemingly unphysical nonassociativity has crippled many physicists’ efforts to exploit them, but Baez explained that their peculiar math has also ...

How few corners can a shape have and still tile the plane?” mathematician Gábor Domokos asked me over pizza. His deceptively simple question was about the geometry of tilings, also called ...

This is episode two of a three-part series. You can listen to part one here and part three here. [CLIP: Theme music] Rachel Feltman: Ever wondered what math actually is? No? Well, mathematicians sure ...

Scientists have developed a unified theory for mathematical parameters known as gauge freedoms. Their new formulas will allow researchers to interpret research results much faster and with greater ...

Let the physical basis of a social economy be given— or, to take a broader view of the matter, of a society. According to all tradition and experience human beings have a characteristic way of ...

The original version of this story appeared in Quanta Magazine. The best perk of Alberto Maspero’s job, he says, is the view from his window. Situated on a hill above the ancient port city of Trieste, ...

The best perk of Alberto Maspero’s job, he says, is the view from his window. Situated on a hill above the ancient port city of Trieste, Italy, his office at the International School for Advanced ...

Isaac Asimov excelled at predicting the future. In one of his early science fiction stories, he introduced pocket calculators decades before you could buy them at Radio Shack. In a later book, he ...