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

To see how one cube can pass through another, imagine holding a cube over a table and examining its shadow (assuming it’s ...

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

The recent paper studies algorithmic pricing through the lens of game theory, an interdisciplinary field at the border of ...

The pillow is cold against your cheek. Your upstairs neighbor creaks across the ceiling. You close your eyes; shadows and light dance across your vision. A cat sniffs at a piece of cheese. Dots fall ...

Here’s a test for infants: Show them a glass of water on a desk. Hide it behind a wooden board. Now move the board toward the glass. If the board keeps going past the glass, as if it weren’t there, ...

New work shows that physical folding of the genome to control genes located far away may have been a critical turning point for life on Earth. For evolutionary biologists, what most distinguishes the ...

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 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 ...

The leading approach to the simplex method, a widely used technique for balancing complex logistical constraints, can’t get any better. In 1939, upon arriving late to his statistics course at the ...

Every Tuesday, editor in chief Samir Patel sits down with writers and editors to discuss our most thought-provoking stories in science and math. Audio editions of Quanta’s stories with Susan Valot ...