The shape of the cosmos depends on a balance of two competing forces: the pull of gravity and the expansion driven by dark ...

In our mind’s eye, the universe seems to go on forever. But using geometry we can explore a variety of three-dimensional shapes that offer alternatives to “ordinary” infinite space. When you gaze out ...

When speaking of our universe, it's often said that "matter tells spacetime how to curve, and curved spacetime tells matter how to move." This is the essence of Albert Einstein's famous general theory ...

Jason Lotay explains how mathematicians studying special geometries are collaborating with physicists to explore M-theory, an 11-dimensional description of the world that unifies the various string ...

On a mild autumn day in 2016, the Hungarian mathematician Gábor Domokos arrived on the geophysicist Douglas Jerolmack’s doorstep in Philadelphia. Domokos carried with him his suitcases, a bad cold and ...

The original version of this story appeared in Quanta Magazine. In the fall of 2022, a Princeton University graduate student named Carolina Figueiredo stumbled onto a massive coincidence. She ...

Brain activity is structured in space and time. The resulting activity patterns are conventionally thought to depend on an intricate web of anatomical connections that link specialized populations of ...

The International Mathematical Olympiad (IMO) is a prestigious competition featuring talented high school students from around the world, in which competitors solve complicated mathematical problems.