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Order behind chaos
We all know what symmetry is. But why does it play such a central role in modern physics?
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Symmetry making and symmetry breaking
A closer look at the power of symmetry in physics.
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Laws and disorder
Can simple equations really describe the complex world we live in?
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Infinite sums and China's demographics
China has recently revoked its one-child policy. What better occasion to explore the mathematics of population growth with a surprising example.
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Maths in a minute: Bayes' theorem
It would be foolish to ignore evidence. Luckily Bayes' theorem shows us how to take it in into account.
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The maths of February 29
Find out why leap years exist, why you have to wait 400 years for your birthday pattern to repeat, and why there are so many Fridays falling on a 13th.
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What are sigma levels?
Find out how scientists, from physicists to geneticists, measure their confidence in their results.
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It from bit?
Does reality arise from information? What does this even mean? Anton Zeilinger explains the impact of John Wheeler's radical idea.
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Inferring the Limits on Reality
The fuzziness of the quantum realm could arise from mathematical restrictions on what can ever be known.
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Maxwell's equations and the secrets of nature
Celebrating the 150th anniversary of Maxwell's equations we talk to physicist John Ellis about what they mean for modern technology and our understanding of the Universe.
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Purifying Physics: The quest to explain why the "quantum" exists
A new framework for the laws underlying reality could explain why nature obeys quantum rules, the origin of time’s arrow, and the power of quantum computing.
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Reality's neverending story
In The Neverending Story a little boy named Bastian discovers that there's something extraordinary about the book he's smuggled into his backpack: it changes as he reads it. The act of reading "The Neverending Story" Bastian finds, is simultaneously the act of writing it. Could our universe be in a similar loop?