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Math Duo Maps the Infinite Terrain of Minimal Surfaces
A pair of mathematicians has built on an obscure, 30-year-old mathematical theory to show that soap-filmlike minimal surfaces appear abundantly in a wide range of shapes. In the final months...
Möbius Strips Defy a Link With Infinity
...by Olga Frolkina, a mathematician at Moscow State University, shows that one relatively well-known mathematical object can’t be packed an uncountably infinite number of times into an infinite amount of...
How to Find Simple Treasures in Complex Numbers
...In the year 620, the Indian mathematician Brahmagupta formalized arithmetical operations for negative numbers using a special sign, much as we do today. But to many European mathematicians, negative numbers...
Mysterious Quantum Rule Reconstructed From Scratch
...most celebrated attempts, presented by the American mathematician Andrew Gleason in 1957, shows that the rule follows from some of the other components of the standard mathematical structure of quantum...
Smaller Is Better: Why Finite Number Systems Pack More Punch
...rich structure that mathematicians can exploit to solve problems related to everything from prime numbers to patterns in the solutions to polynomial equations. In 2003, the mathematicians Jean Bourgain, Nets...
How a Strange Grid Reveals Hidden Connections Between Simple Numbers
...prolific conjecturer Paul Erdős posed a math problem: Take any set of numbers you like. These could be the whole numbers from 1 to 12, the first 10,000 prime numbers,...
An Astrophysicist Who Maps the Universe’s Terra Incognita
...own path began with a map. Yes. I grew up in India. My parents are academics, so I grew up around books. I loved science and math. But I was...
A Movement to Close the Gender Gap in Mathematics
...issues in mathematics, which took place during the Brazilian Math Colloquium, the biggest gathering in the Brazilian mathematical community, which happens every two years. And this was actually the first...
Unscrambling the Hidden Secrets of Superpermutations
...math class. A permutation is an arrangement of symbols that uses each symbol exactly once: no repeats and no omissions. Permutations pop up all over the place: Anytime you arrange...