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Mathematics

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He Dropped Out to Become a Poet. Now He’s Won a Fields Medal.

July 5, 2022

June Huh wasn’t interested in mathematics until a chance encounter during his sixth year of college. Now his profound insights connecting combinatorics and geometry have led to math’s highest honor.

In Times of Scarcity, War and Peace, a Ukrainian Finds the Magic in Math

July 5, 2022

With her homeland mired in war, the sphere-packing number theorist Maryna Viazovska has become the second woman to win a Fields Medal in the award’s 86-year history.

The Sordid Past of the Cubic Formula

June 30, 2022

The quest to solve cubic equations led to duels, betrayals — and modern mathematics.

Can Computers Be Mathematicians?

June 29, 2022

Artificial intelligence has bested humans at problem-solving challenges like chess and Go. Is mathematics research next? Steven Strogatz speaks with mathematician Kevin Buzzard to learn about the effort to translate math into language that computers understand.

How to Weigh Truth With a Balance Scale

June 27, 2022

In recreational mathematics, the balance scale is an endless source of puzzles that require precise and elaborate logic and teach the fundamentals of generalization.

Mathematical Connect-the-Dots Reveals How Structure Emerges

June 23, 2022

A new proof identifies precisely how large a mathematical graph must be before it contains a regular substructure.

Surfaces So Different Even a Fourth Dimension Can’t Make Them the Same

June 16, 2022

For decades mathematicians have searched for a specific pair of surfaces that can’t be transformed into each other in four-dimensional space. Now they’ve found them.

Graduate Student’s Side Project Proves Prime Number Conjecture

June 6, 2022

Jared Duker Lichtman, 26, has proved a longstanding conjecture relating prime numbers to a broad class of “primitive” sets. To his adviser, it came as a “complete shock.”

Surfaces Beyond Imagination Are Discovered After Decades-Long Search

June 2, 2022

Using ideas borrowed from graph theory, two mathematicians have shown that extremely complex surfaces are easy to traverse.

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