Articles

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.

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.

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.

What are sigma levels?

Find out how scientists, from physicists to geneticists, measure their confidence in their results.

It from bit?

Does reality arise from information? What does this even mean? Anton Zeilinger explains the impact of John Wheeler's radical idea.

Inferring the Limits on Reality

The fuzziness of the quantum realm could arise from mathematical restrictions on what can ever be known.

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.

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.

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?

Analysing Ada

Ada Lovelace, born 200 years ago this month, is hailed the world's first computer programmer. What exactly was her contribution to computer science?

Analysing Ada, continued

We continue our look at Ada Lovelace's contribution to computer science.

Particle hunting at the LHC: the particles

CERN's Large Hadron Collider is one of the few scientific experiments to sparked wide-spread media coverage, particularly with the 2012 announcement of the discovery of the long-sought Higgs boson. So what really goes on at CERN and why the hubbub about the Large Hadron Collider, known as the LHC?