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Satanic science

There's no doubt that information is power, but could it be converted into physical energy you could heat a room with or run a machine on? In the 19th century James Clerk Maxwell invented a hypothetical being — a "demon" — that seemed to be able to do just that. The problem was that the little devil blatantly contravened the laws of physics. What is Maxwell's demon and how was it resolved?
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From bridges to networks

How a cute 18th century puzzle laid the foundations for one of the most modern areas of maths: network theory.
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space

What is cosmology?

How big is the Universe? Where did it come from and where is it going? Why is it the way it is? These are just some of the questions cosmologists study.

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The Gömböc: The object that shouldn't exist

A Gömböc is a strange thing. It wriggles and rolls around with an apparent will of its own. Until quite recently, no-one knew whether Gömböcs even existed. Even now, Gábor Domokos, one of their discoverers, reckons that in some sense they barely exists at all.
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Mysterious neutrinos

Research into the bizarre world of neutrinos helps to piece together the creation story of the Universe.

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Sending flu packaging

How are researchers in disease dynamics using mathematics to understand how the influenza virus replicates? This short, accessible article investigates.

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Strings. Image credit: Johnny Settle (used under Creative Commons licence)

The Pointless Universe: the fascination of string theory

"[String theory] has led us in strange directions that we couldn't conceive of; it's revealed depths of mathematical structure that we couldn't have anticipated". Watch a video interview with Professor Michael Green, winner of the 2014 Fundamental Physics Prize.