A line of engineering research seeks to develop computers that can tackle a class of challenges called combinatorial optimization problems. These are common in real-world applications such as ...

Differential equations are fundamental tools in physics: they are used to describe phenomena ranging from fluid dynamics to general relativity. But when these equations become stiff (i.e. they involve ...

John Hopfield, one of this year’s winners of the Nobel Prize in Physics, is a true polymath. His career started with probing the physics of solid states during the field’s heyday in the 1950s before ...

A machine-learning AI can solve physics problems by simplifying them to be more symmetric. “There are many, many cases in the history of science where people thought things were more complicated than ...

The following is an extract from our Lost in Space-Time newsletter. Each month, we hand over the keyboard to a physicist or two to tell you about fascinating ideas from their corner of the universe.

In October, a paper titled “Assembly theory explains and quantifies selection and evolution” appeared in the top science journal Nature. The authors – a team led by Lee Cronin at the University of ...