Archive

Three years ago, a solitary mathematician released an impenetrable proof of the famous abc conjecture. At a recent conference dedicated to the work, optimism mixed with bafflement.

If a theory can’t be tested, is it still science?

Computer scientists are abuzz over a fast new algorithm for solving one of the central problems in the field.

For this month’s puzzle, design a Sudoku square to figure out the likes and dislikes of four finicky friends.

A new breakthrough that bridges number theory and geometry is just the latest triumph for a close-knit group of mathematicians.

Machine learning works spectacularly well, but mathematicians aren’t quite sure why.

Nature offers species a panoply of ways to determine an organism’s sex. That flexibility suggests we need not be concerned about losing sex chromosomes, but it raises the question of why such a fundamental property is so variable.

The solution to this month’s puzzle explains how to find a rule behind a given sequence of numbers and challenges readers to take on a ‘lovely’ unsolved problem.

Three computer scientists have solved a problem central to a dozen far-flung mathematical fields.