Like physics, math has its own set of “fundamental particles”—the prime numbers, which can’t be broken down into smaller natural numbers. Over the past year, researchers have found that formulas ...

Real and imaginary: The time-dependent Schrödinger equation formulated using complex numbers. (Courtesy: iStock/piranka) Complex numbers are essential to achieve the most accurate quantum-mechanical ...

Several years ago one of us, Toni, asked another of us, Marco, to come to his office at the Institute of Photonic Sciences, a large research center in Castelldefels near Barcelona. “There is a problem ...