Tom Hutchcroft has won a prestigious EMS Prize at the European Congress of Mathematics 2024, for work on mathematical models that can help us figure out phase transitions.

In this podcast we talk to Hugo Duminil-Copin, who tells us how his work in statistical physics brings together his two loves – maths and physics.

The second guiding principle in probability theory is more subtle – universality.

It has often been observed that mathematics is astonishingly effective as a tool for understanding the universe. But, asks Phil Wilson, why should this be? Is mathematics a universal truth, and how would we tell?