Ramanujan’s insights into pi are now guiding scientists toward a deeper understanding of how the universe works.

Throw a pebble into a lake and it, obligingly, sinks. Smash particles together and they fall apart in certain patterns. Flick a switch and let there be light. Reality, for all its glory and cosmic ...

If you hang around with physics people long enough, some­one eventually will bring up Maxwell's equations. Maybe as part of a joke, or on a T-shirt or a tattoo. But they'll be somewhere. So even if ...