Quanta

The cognitive scientist Donald Hoffman uses evolutionary game theory to show that our perceptions of an independent reality must be illusions.

In the new, free-for-all era of dark matter research, the controversial idea that dark matter is concentrated in thin disks is being rescued from scientific oblivion.

A race to decipher the brain’s algorithms could revolutionize machine learning.

The Go-playing program captures elements of human intuition, an advance that promises far-reaching consequences.

The biochemist David Deamer proposes that life evolved from a collection of interacting molecules, probably in a pool in the shadow of a volcano.

A previously unnoticed property of prime numbers seems to violate a longstanding assumption about how they behave.

At 86, Britain’s preeminent mathematical matchmaker is still tackling the big questions and dreaming of a union between the quantum and the gravitational forces.

A surprising burst of light appeared in the sky at the same time as a collision between two black holes. Is the flash just a cosmic coincidence, or will it […]

On the trail of a dangerous revelation about a Nobel Prize-winning dissident, the biologist Sean B. Carroll rediscovers the rush of an unexpected discovery.