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Is There Math Beyond the Equal Sign?

March 22, 2023

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

March 21, 2023

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

March 20, 2023

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

March 16, 2023

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

March 15, 2023

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

March 14, 2023

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

March 13, 2023

Cosmologists are using secondary signatures from the cosmic microwave background to map the universe’s hidden matter.

Q&A

The Researcher Who Would Teach Machines to Be Fair

March 10, 2023

Arvind Narayanan uses quantitative methods to expose and correct the misuse of quantitative methods.

New Proof Distinguishes Mysterious and Powerful ‘Modular Forms’

March 9, 2023

Using “refreshingly old” tools, mathematicians resolved a 50-year-old conjecture about how to categorize important functions called modular forms, with consequences for number theory and theoretical physics.

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