Mathematics

Whether you’re passing secret notes in class or downloading images from a space probe, Reed-Solomon codes offer an ingenious way to embed information and correct for errors.

Mathematicians have uncovered a surprising wealth of rock-paper-scissors-like patterns in randomly chosen dice.

Researchers can now find the shortest route through a network nearly as fast as theoretically possible, even when some steps can cancel out others.

Mathematicians are taking ideas developed to study random numbers and applying them to a broad range of categories.

On nights and weekends, Justin Gilmer attacked an old question in pure math using the tools of information theory.

Four Fields Medals were awarded for major breakthroughs in geometry, combinatorics, statistical physics and number theory, even as mathematicians continued to wrestle with how computers are changing the discipline.

Computer scientists this year learned how to transmit perfect secrets, why transformers seem so good at everything, and how to improve on decades-old algorithms (with a little help from AI).

Mathematicians predicted that if they imposed enough restrictions on how a shape might tile space, they could force a periodic pattern to emerge. But they were wrong.

Mathematicians are finding inevitable structures in sufficiently large sets of integers.