Archive
Latest Articles
Bob Metcalfe, Ethernet Pioneer, Wins Turing Award
The American researcher was recognized for his central role in inventing, standardizing and commercializing the ubiquitous networking technology.
Is There Math Beyond the Equal Sign?
Can mathematics handle things that are essentially the same without being exactly equal? Category theorist Eugenia Cheng and host Steven Strogatz discuss the power and pleasures of abstraction.
Surprise Computer Science Proof Stuns Mathematicians
For decades, mathematicians have been inching forward on a problem about which sets contain evenly spaced patterns of three numbers. Last month, two computer scientists blew past all of those results.
Dinosaur Bone Study Reveals That Not All Giants Grew Alike
A survey of prehistoric bones reveals that T. rex and some of its cousins had more than one way to reach enormous sizes. Evolution may have preserved that variation in modern animals too.
The Unpredictable Abilities Emerging From Large AI Models
Large language models like ChatGPT are now big enough that they’ve started to display startling, unpredictable behaviors.
Coloring by Numbers Reveals Arithmetic Patterns in Fractions
In a recent paper, two mathematicians showed that a particular pattern is unavoidable when fractions are categorized.
Global Microbiome Study Gives New View of Shared Health Risks
The most comprehensive survey of how we share our microbiomes suggests a new way of thinking about the risks of developing some diseases that aren’t usually considered contagious.
Shadows in the Big Bang Afterglow Reveal Invisible Cosmic Structures
Cosmologists are using secondary signatures from the cosmic microwave background to map the universe’s hidden matter.
The Researcher Who Would Teach Machines to Be Fair
Arvind Narayanan uses quantitative methods to expose and correct the misuse of quantitative methods.