A sudden flash of insight is a product of your brain. Neuroscientists track the neural activity underlying an “aha” and how ...

In the mid-19th century, Bernhard Riemann conceived of a new way to think about mathematical spaces, providing the foundation ...

The theoretical physicist and best-selling author finds inspiration in politics and philosophy for rethinking space and time.

Despite their wide variety of sizes, niches and shapes, sharks scale geometrically, pointing to possible fundamental ...

After more than three centuries, a geometry problem that originated with a royal bet has been solved. Imagine you’re holding two equal-size dice. Is it possible to bore a tunnel through one die that’s ...

Paulina Rowińska is a science writer with a Ph.D. in mathematics from Imperial College London. Before joining Quanta Magazine as a science writing fellow, she was an editorial intern at ...

Imagine a town with two widget merchants. Customers prefer cheaper widgets, so the merchants must compete to set the lowest price. Unhappy with their meager profits, they meet one night in a ...

The same pulling force that causes “tears” in a glass of wine also shapes embryos. It’s another example of how genes exploit mechanical forces for growth and development. In March, a group of ...

The same pulling force that causes “tears” in a glass of wine also shapes embryos. It’s another example of how genes exploit mechanical forces for growth and development. Anna Demming is a freelance ...