Abstractions blog

The legendary marine biologist discusses why she’s excited about the coming era of ocean science, the shortsightedness of maritime exploitation and diving in the Arctic in her 80s.

Paul Erdős placed small bounties on hundreds of unsolved math problems. Over the past 20 years, only a handful have been claimed.

The Advanced Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory’s third detection further compounds the mystery of why black holes collide.

To assess the ocean’s health, ecology’s “rugged individualists” learned to get with the big data program.

Juggling has advanced enormously in recent decades, thanks in part to the mathematical study of possible patterns.

A new paper claims that a common digital security system could be tweaked to withstand attacks even from a powerful quantum computer.

A system of seven Earth-like exoplanets appeared to be unstable. Now their orbits have been rewritten in the music of the spheres.

Ramsey’s theorem predicts a surprising (and useful) consistency in the organization of graphs. Here’s a simple visual proof of how it works.

To avoid garbled messages, mathematicians might translate them into geometric form.