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A new computational method, based on neural networks, can simulate open quantum systems with unprecedented versatility. The method was independently developed by physicists at EPFL, France, the UK, and the US, and is published in Physical Review Letters. Even on the scale of everyday life, nature is governed by the laws of quantum physics.

Researchers from EPFL have found the mechanism that lies behind a mysterious physics phenomenon in fluid mechanics: the fact that turbulence in fluids spontaneously self-organizes into parallel patterns of oblique turbulent bands - an example of order emerging spontaneously from chaos. In so doing, they solved a problem that had stumped generations of physicists.

Researchers from EPFL explain how the shapes of neurons can be classified using mathematical methods from the field of algebraic topology. Neuroscientists can now start building a formal catalogue for all the types of cells in the brain. Onto this catalogue of cells, they can systematically map the function and role in disease of each type of neuron in the brain.

In the past, climate scientists have tended to underestimate the risk of a co-occurrence of heatwave and drought.

EPFL scientists have developed a mathematical 'face-recognition' method for identifying and discovering nanoporous materials based on their pore size. Image: Topological differences of top-performing materials for methane storage. Topological data analysis reveals the similarity between structures; each node represents a family of similar materials, while a network between two nodes indicates that they share at least one material.

Quantum systems consisting of many particles are a major challenge for physicists, since their behaviour can be determined only with immense computational power. ETH physicists have now discovered an elegant way to simplify the problem. Classical physics offers a relatively easy approach to describing how objects move in our everyday world.

In Nymphenburg on Friday, the ETH probabilist Wendelin Werner was awarded the Heinz Gumin Prize, the highest-value mathematics prize in Germany.

For fifty years, mathematicians have grappled with the so-called "fixed point" theorem. A team has now found an elegant, one-page solution that opens up new perspectives in physics and economics. Take a map of the world. Now put it down on the ground in Central Park, against a rock on Mount Everest, or on your kitchen table; there will always be a point on the map that sits exactly on the actual physical place it represents.

An international team of scientistshas obtained the prime factors of the RSA challenge number RSA-768, using the Number Field Sieve.