A global catalog shows how creatures across the tree of life balance rigidity with flexibility in remarkably consistent ways ...

Tessellations aren’t just eye-catching patterns—they can be used to crack complex mathematical problems. By repeatedly ...

Scientists mapping the human body at the cellular level keep running into the same surprise: beneath the apparent chaos of tissues and organs, there is a hidden order that looks a lot like pure ...

Life begins with a single fertilized cell that gradually transforms into a multicellular organism. This process requires ...

How bees, beer cans and big data all solve the same problem: not enough space. By Steven Strogatz Photo illustrations by Jens Mortensen Each installment of “Math, Revealed” starts with an object, ...

Fifty years ago, “fractal” was born. In a 1975 book, the Polish-French-American mathematician Benoit B. Mandelbrot coined the term to describe a family of rough, fragmented shapes that fall outside ...

A few minutes into a 2018 talk at the University of Michigan, Ian Tobasco picked up a large piece of paper and crumpled it into a seemingly disordered ball of chaos. He held it up for the audience to ...

Sophie Germain was a brilliant, self-taught mathematician who won one of France's most prestigious prizes, yet she declined ...

All products featured on WIRED are independently selected by our editors. However, we may receive compensation from retailers and/or from purchases of products through these links. A few minutes into ...