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 ...

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 ...

Breakthroughs in physics sometimes require an assist from the field of mathematics—and vice versa. In 1912, Albert Einstein, then a 33-year-old theoretical physicist at the Eidgenössische Technische ...

It has long been a mystery why pure math can reveal so much about the nature of the physical world. Antimatter was discovered in Paul Dirac’s equations before being detected in cosmic rays. Quarks ...

When you throw a ball in the air, the equations of classical physics will tell you exactly what path the ball will take as it ...

It’s the same math that explains how, under the right conditions, the atmosphere above a barren plain can produce a roiling ...

The cosmological constant has been a problem in physics since Einstein, but new research may show why it takes the value that ...

Some of the world's top mathematicians and theoretical physicists gather on campus this weekend for a conference in honor of one of the pioneers of the field, Professor Albert Schwarz of the UC Davis ...

In It Must Be Beautiful: Great Equations of Modern Science, Graham Farmelo assembled and edited essays on 11 great equations of the 20th century. Six are from physics: E = hf, E = mc 2, Einstein’s ...

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 ...