Even if you don’t know much physics, you probably know one of its core tenets: an object at rest stays at rest, and an object in motion stays in motion. In fact, in a vacuum where there’s literally nothing to slow things down, things don’t prefer being at rest or in motion. This plays out in real life all the…
The number zero is something we all take for granted, yet its conceptual origin has eluded archaeologists and historians. An updated analysis of an ancient Indian manuscript is shedding new light on this longstanding mystery, showing that the symbol that would eventually evolve into the number zero emerged at least…
A popular chess problem known as the Queen’s Puzzle has captivated mathematicians and computer scientists for years, yet no one has been able to write a computer program that can solve the conundrum quickly and efficiently. Researchers from the UK now claim that computers will never be up to the task—and they’re…
Australian scientists have managed to crack the code of a mysterious 3,700-year-old Babylonian clay tablet, revealing a level of mathematical sophistication that pre-dates the ancient Greeks by a whopping 1,500 years.
In Julius Horsthuis’ short film Recurrence, he takes the audience on a slow descent into a sprawling metropolis he’s created. But as you get closer and closer to the city, and try to make out details like houses and skyscrapers, you start to realize that those tiny details only reveal more of the same, and that your…
You are very lucky that you ended up about the size that you are today, somewhere between one and ten feet tall and weighing somewhere between one and one thousand pounds. This is a very good size. Not to body shame, but if you were, say, a quadrillion times shorter and weighed a nonillion times less (that’s one…
One of the most well-accepted physical theories makes no logical sense. Quantum mechanics, the theory that governs the smallest possible spaces, forces our human brains to accept some really wacky, uncomfortable realities. Maybe we live in a world where certain observations can force our universe to branch into…
Imagine: You’re at an airport with your fancy new bag rolling behind you. You have spent a little too much time deciding which plane snack will both taste good and doesn’t have too many calories, and now must sprint to catch your plane. You make a turn and suddenly, your bag begins to wobble. No time to fix it, you…
Mathematics is far more fraught with debate and disagreement than you might imagine. Arguments about things some of the smartest physicists have trouble understanding rage for years. Recently, a pair of mathematicians ignited some old flames—or rather, shattered some glass—with a new set of results that, if correct,…
The hallways of math and science history are overflowing with the achievements of white men, from Sir Isaac Newton to Steve Jobs; their faces are printed into elementary school textbooks everywhere, and their achievements have been indelibly drilled into our minds, with countless awards and institutions named after…
Calculators are awesome, but they’re not always handy. More to the point, no one wants to be seen reaching for the calculator on their mobile phone when it’s time to figure out a 15 percent gratuity. Here are ten tips to help you crunch numbers in your head.
Researchers from the University of Liverpool have shown that it’s possible to detect neurodegenerative disorders in famous artists by analyzing subtle changes in their brush strokes over time. The technique could eventually be used to flag Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s in artists before they’re diagnosed.
Each year, tens of thousands of passengers get bumped from their scheduled flights because of overbooking. A new video from TED-Ed explains why companies do it, and why you have a right to be pissed off when it happens.
Have you ever wondered what your brain is really doing as you sweat your way through a math test? Now you can see for yourself, thanks to a new brain imaging study from Carnegie Mellon University that captured the brain activity of people in the act of solving math problems.
Following Melania’s now-infamous speech from the Republican Convention, a Canadian physicist has calculated the odds of those words and phrases appearing in the same order as Michelle Obama’s speech eight years ago. Looking at his answer, let’s just say it would be a coincidence of cosmic proportions.
Rock and mountain climbers rely on strong, yet elastic ropes to keep them safe should they happen to fall. Now mathematicians at the University of Utah have come up with an equation to design an ideal climbing rope—one that would be safer and more durable. They described this perfect rope, and a promising class of…
If you fold a pizza in half lengthwise to eat it (the proper way to eat pizza), then you’re actually utilizing mathematician Carl Gauss’s “theorem egregium” or the “remarkable theorem.”
If you’ve ever been frustrated at your inability to complete a level of Super Mario Brothers, here’s a little something to cheer you up. Computer scientists have demonstrated that solving a level in the popular video game is tantamount to solving some of the hardest problems in computational science.
Each year, the migratory monarch butterfly embarks on an extraordinary journey from eastern North America to central Mexico. A multidisciplinary team of scientists has now created a model circuit that finally explains how these insects are able to navigate across such vast distances.
Everyone learns in grade school that you can’t divide by zero, but few of us ever learn (or fully understand) why. The stock answer is that it gives you an answer of infinity. The truth is a bit more nuanced than that, and an old mechanical calculator offers the perfect illustration.
