Mathematicians unified key laws of physics in 2025

What’s Happening

Listen up: It took 125 years, but in 2025 a team of mathematicians found out the solution to a long-puzzling problem about the equations that govern the behaviour of particles in a fluid Mathematics Mathematicians unified key laws of physics in 2025 It took 125 years, but in 2025 a team of mathematicians found out the solution to a long-puzzling problem about the equations that govern the behaviour of particles in a fluid By Karmela Padavic-Callaghan 29 December 2025 Facebook / Meta Twitter / X icon Linkedin Reddit Email The equations that govern fluids can be tricky to handle Vladimir Veljanovski / Alamy In 1900, mathematician David Hilbert presented his colleagues with a list of problems he believed both captured the present state of mathematics and the shape of its future.

This year, 125 years later, Zaher Hani at the University of Michigan and his colleagues solved one of Hilbert’s problems – and unified several laws of physics in the process . Hilbert was a proponent of deriving all laws of physics from mathematical axioms – statements that mathematicians take to be basic truths. (and honestly, same)

The sixth problem on his list was to derive laws of physics that dictate the behaviour of fluids from such axioms.

The Details

Why mathematicians want to destroy infinity – and may succeed Until 2025, physicists actually had three distinct ways of describing fluids, depending on their grow. Different rules governed the microscopic grow of single particles, the mesoscopic world populated particles and the macroscopic realm filled with fully fledged fluids like water flowing in a sink.

Researchers had made strides in finding links between them, but the three were never stitched together seamlessly until Hani and his colleagues figured out how. The researchers breakthrough came in part because they worked out how to use a diagram-based technique physicist Richard Feynman developed for the seemingly different domain of quantum field theory .

Why This Matters

And this was hard work – their papers from earlier this year mark a high point in a half-decade-long project.

Scientists and researchers are watching this development closely.

The Bottom Line

This story is still developing, and we’ll keep you updated as more info drops.

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