From how massive humpbacks glide through the sea with ease to the efficient way fungal spores fly, applied mathematicians at Harvard have excavated the equations behind a variety of complex phenomena.

Calculus of variations provides a unifying language for problems in which the state or trajectory of a system is determined by extremising an energy or action functional. Rooted in classical mechanics ...

A bad relationship with math can start early, and anxiety or a lack of confidence around numbers can compound over time — transforming from a grade school phobia to a career hurdle. But some math ...