Forbes contributors publish independent expert analyses and insights. The Universe is out there, waiting for you to discover it. When it comes to describing the physical world, we can do it ...

In one of David Lodge's comic novels about academia, the English-professor characters play a game called "Humiliation," where they take turns admitting classic works of literature that they haven't ...

Mathematical equations aren't just useful -- many are quite beautiful. And many scientists admit they are often fond of particular formulas not just for their function, but for their form, and the ...

In 1655 the English mathematician John Wallis published a book in which he derived a formula for pi as the product of an infinite series of ratios. Now researchers, in a surprise discovery, have found ...

Mathematical physics occupies the fertile borderland between pure mathematics and theoretical physics, developing precise frameworks to formulate and solve the laws governing nature. It embraces the ...

The mathematical physics underpinning electromagnetic fields and wave equations provides a rigorous framework for understanding the behaviour of electric and magnetic phenomena in both classical and ...

The irregular, swirling motion of fluids we call turbulence can be found everywhere, from stirring in a teacup to currents in ...

British theoretical physicist Paul Dirac was one of the most significant figures in the early days of quantum physics, who along with Erwin Schrödinger won the Nobel Prize for physics in 1933. But it ...

Mathematics is full of weird number systems that most people have never heard of and would have trouble even conceptualizing. But rational numbers are familiar. They’re the counting numbers and the ...

Turbulence is one of the least understood phenomena of the physical world. Long considered too hard to understand and predict mathematically, turbulence is the reason the Navier-Stokes equations, ...

Many books about science are meant to be pleasure reading. Such books attempt to convey the wonder and fascination and excitement of science, and ideally some of the substance as well. After all, good ...

A former graduate student reflects on how Isadore Singer, who died on February 11, brought together mathematicians, physicists and anyone else interested in the deeper connections between diverse ...