Mathematics

In his rapid ascent to the top of his field, James Maynard has cut a path through simple-sounding questions about prime numbers that have stumped mathematicians for centuries.

Herd immunity differs from place to place, and many factors influence how it’s calculated.

While locked down due to COVID-19, Joshua Greene and Andrew Lobb figured out how to prove a version of the “rectangular peg problem.”

Mathematicians typically appreciate either generic or exceptional beauty in their work, but one type is more useful in describing the universe.

Representation theory was initially dismissed. Today, it’s central to much of mathematics.

To distinguish between fundamentally different objects, mathematicians turn to invariants that encode the objects’ essential features.

Mathematicians try to figure out when problems can be solved using current knowledge — and when they have to chart a new path instead.

After translating some of math’s complicated equations, researchers have created an AI system that they hope will answer even bigger questions.

It took Lisa Piccirillo less than a week to answer a long-standing question about a strange knot discovered over half a century ago by the legendary John Conway.