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New Black Hole Math Closes Cosmic Blind Spot

May 13, 2021

A mathematical shortcut for analyzing black hole collisions works even in cases where it shouldn’t. As astronomers use it to search for new classes of hidden black holes, others wonder: Why?

How Mathematicians Use Homology to Make Sense of Topology

May 11, 2021

Originally devised as a rigorous means of counting holes, homology provides a scaffolding for mathematical ideas, allowing for a new way to analyze the shapes within data.

How to Solve Equations That Are Stubborn as a Goat

May 6, 2021

Math teachers have stymied students for hundreds of years by sticking goats in strangely shaped fields. Learn why one grazing goat problem has stumped mathematicians for more than a century.

Amie Wilkinson Sees the Dynamic Chaos in Puff Pastry

May 3, 2021

To a dynamicist like Amie Wilkinson, understanding the universe is about knowing all the right moves.

New Proof Reveals That Graphs With No Pentagons Are Fundamentally Different

April 26, 2021

Researchers have proved a special case of the Erdős-Hajnal conjecture, which shows what happens in graphs that exclude anything resembling a pentagon.

The Puzzling Power of Simple Arithmetic

April 20, 2021

Playing with arithmetic can lead us to unexpected and profound discoveries that point toward deeper mathematics and sometimes even deeper science.

Latest Neural Nets Solve World’s Hardest Equations Faster Than Ever Before

April 19, 2021

Two new approaches allow deep neural networks to solve entire families of partial differential equations, making it easier to model complicated systems and to do so orders of magnitude faster.

Trachette Jackson Fights Cancer With Math

April 12, 2021

Quantitative models built by the mathematical biologist Trachette Jackson can make cancer therapies safer and more effective.

Mathematician Disproves 80-Year-Old Algebra Conjecture

April 12, 2021

Inside the symmetries of a crystal shape, a postdoctoral researcher has unearthed a counterexample to a basic conjecture about multiplicative inverses.

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