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Mathematics

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How a Simple Arithmetic Puzzle Can Guide Discovery

May 28, 2021

Playing with numbers can lead to deep mathematical and scientific insights.

Q&A

A Number Theorist Who Connects Math to Other Creative Pursuits

May 27, 2021

Jordan Ellenberg enjoys studying — and writing about — the mathematics underlying everyday phenomena.

Mathematicians Find Long-Sought Building Blocks for Special Polynomials

May 25, 2021

Hilbert’s 12th problem asked for novel analogues of the roots of unity, the building blocks for certain number systems. Now, over 100 years later, two mathematicians have produced them.

Mathematicians Answer Old Question About Odd Graphs

May 19, 2021

A pair of mathematicians solved a legendary question about the proportion of vertices in a graph with an odd number of connections.

New Black Hole Math Closes Cosmic Blind Spot

May 13, 2021

A mathematical shortcut for analyzing black hole collisions works even in cases where it shouldn’t. As astronomers use it to search for new classes of hidden black holes, others wonder: Why?

How Mathematicians Use Homology to Make Sense of Topology

May 11, 2021

Originally devised as a rigorous means of counting holes, homology provides a scaffolding for mathematical ideas, allowing for a new way to analyze the shapes within data.

How to Solve Equations That Are Stubborn as a Goat

May 6, 2021

Math teachers have stymied students for hundreds of years by sticking goats in strangely shaped fields. Learn why one grazing goat problem has stumped mathematicians for more than a century.

Amie Wilkinson Sees the Dynamic Chaos in Puff Pastry

May 3, 2021

To a dynamicist like Amie Wilkinson, understanding the universe is about knowing all the right moves.

New Proof Reveals That Graphs With No Pentagons Are Fundamentally Different

April 26, 2021

Researchers have proved a special case of the Erdős-Hajnal conjecture, which shows what happens in graphs that exclude anything resembling a pentagon.

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