All the tech we rely on, from cars to smartphones, was engineered using physics. You don’t need to know the science to use these things. But a well-rounded human should understand at least some of the ...

Maxwell’s equations of electromagnetism and the Euler equation top a poll to find the greatest equations of all time. Robert P Crease discusses the results of his reader survey First among equals – ...

In January I wrote a piece titled “5 Physics Equations Everyone Should Know.” Lots of you weighed in with your own nominations, and there were plenty of good suggestions. So I’ve decided to do a ...

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An eminent mathematician reveals that his advances in the study of millennia-old mathematical questions owe to concepts derived from physics. Mathematics is full of weird number systems that most ...

When most of us picture an atom, we think about a small nucleus made of protons and neutrons orbited by one or more electrons. We view these electrons as point-like while rapidly orbiting the nucleus.

The Navier-Stokes equations describe simple, everyday phenomena, like water flowing from a garden hose, yet they provide a million-dollar mathematical challenge. Physics contains equations that ...

A cornerstone of modern physics is mathematics. Like it or not, without the tools provided to physicists by mathematics, physics would be dead in the water. But (and this is something that all of us ...

The 20th century was a remarkably productive one for physics. First, Albert Einstein's theory of general relativity helped us view gravity not as a force but as a distortion of space. Then Max Planck, ...