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Mathematicians Discover the Perfect Way to Multiply
By chopping up large numbers into smaller ones, researchers have rewritten a fundamental mathematical speed limit. Four thousand years ago, the Babylonians invented multiplication. Last month, mathematicians perfected it. On...
Scientists Discover Exotic New Patterns of Synchronization
...crickets inspired the American theoretical biologist Art Winfree to propose a mathematical model of synchronization. Winfree’s equation was too difficult to solve, but in 1974, a Japanese physicist named Yoshiki...
Cryptography That Is Provably Secure
Researchers have just released cryptographic code with the same level of invincibility as a mathematical proof. Programmers are human, but mathematics is immortal. By making programming more mathematical, a community...
Proof Finds That All Change Is a Mix of Order and Randomness
...at Northwestern University. It often happens in math that after a sweeping conjecture is proven false, mathematicians attempt a more modest version of the statement. In 1977 mathematician Jean-Paul Thouvenot...
Sum-of-Three-Cubes Problem Solved for ‘Stubborn’ Number 33
...equation — a kind of algebraic structure whose properties have fascinated mathematicians for millennia. “They’re rich enough to encode [other mathematical] statements that have nothing to do with Diophantine equations,”...
How the Brain Links Gestures, Perception and Meaning
...where it can help young children generalize verbs to new contexts or solve math equations. “But,” she said, “it’s not necessarily clear when kids begin to understand that our hand...
Karen Uhlenbeck, Uniter of Geometry and Analysis, Wins Abel Prize
...but she didn’t become deeply interested in mathematics until she enrolled in the freshman honors math course at the University of Michigan. “The structure, elegance and beauty of mathematics struck...
Where Proof, Evidence and Imagination Intersect
...history of defying expectations and forcing us to expand our imaginations. That’s one reason mathematicians strive for proof, not just evidence. It’s proof that establishes mathematical truth. All available evidence...
The Math That Tells Cells What They Are
...leads to a mathematical formula” that is then testable in experiments on living cells, Kondev said. It’s this marriage of theory and experiment that excites Bialek. He hopes to see...