Mathematics

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.

Wordle is a word game. But you can use math to optimize your chances of winning (without cheating).

The work — the first-ever limit on how many whole numbers can be written as the sum of two cubed fractions — makes significant headway on “a recurring embarrassment for number theorists.”

Inspired by the results of a game-playing neural network, mathematicians have been making unexpected advances on an age-old math problem.

Wei Ho, the first director of the Women and Mathematics program at the Institute for Advanced Study, combines algebra and geometry in her work on an ancient class of curves.