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Quantum physics really is strange

A team of physicists have curbed the hope that quantum physics might be squared with common sense. At least if we want to hang on to Einstein's highly respected theory of relativity. Their result concerns what Einstein called "spooky action at a distance" and it may soon be possible to test their prediction in the lab.
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Pythagoras

Triples and quadruples: from Pythagoras to Fermat

If there's one bit of maths you remember from school it's probably Pythagoras' theorem. But what's a Pythagorean triple? How many triples are there and how do you find them? And what about quadruples, quintuples, sextuples....

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The chaos of sudoku

Struggling to solve today's sudoku? Is your tried and tested method hitting a brick wall and you feel like you are going around in circles? New research might make you feel a bit better: you might not necessarily be stuck... perhaps you are just in a patch of transient chaos on your way to the solution.
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The travelling salesman

The Travelling Salesman movie is coming to the UK! Get your tickets here and find out about the P vs NP problem.
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Understanding uncertainty: ESP and Bayes

In the previous article we looked at a psychological study which claims to provide evidence that certain types of extra-sensory perception exist, using a statistical method called significance testing. But do the results of the study really justify this conclusion?
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Understanding uncertainty: ESP and the significance of significance

In March 2011 a highly respected psychology journal published a paper claiming to provide evidence for extra-sensory perception (ESP). The claim was based largely on the results of a very common statistical procedure called significance testing. The experiments provide an excellent way into looking at how significance testing works and at what's problematic about it.

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How to make a marriage stable

How do you best allocate students to universities, doctors to hospitals, or kidneys to transplant patients? It's a tough problem that has earned this year's Memorial Prize in Economics.
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moon

Understanding the unseen

When NASA first decided to put a man on the Moon they had a problem: once the Apollo spacecraft was in flight, they would not be able to observe its exact location and neither would they be able to predict it using physics. How could they send astronauts to the Moon if they didn't know where they were? An ingenious mathematician came up with an answer.
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The quest to simplify

String theory predicts there are more than the familiar four dimensions of space-time. But where do those extra dimensions come from? Eva Silverstein is looking for the answer.

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Taking on a 10-D Universe with 8-D maths

A bizarre set of of 8-dimensional numbers could explain how to handle string-theory's extra dimensions, why elementary particles come in families of three... and maybe even how spacetime emerges in four dimensions.
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Kaluza, Klein and their story of a fifth dimension

Space is three-dimensional... or is it? In fact, we are all used to living in a curved, multidimensional universe. And a mathematical argument might just explain how those higher dimensions are hidden from view.
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The ten dimensions of string theory

String theory has one very unique consequence that no other theory of physics before has had: it predicts the number of dimensions of space-time. But where are these other dimensions hiding and will we ever observe them?