Mathematics

Playing with a simple bean machine illustrates how deterministic laws can produce probabilistic, random-seeming behavior.

Two monumental works have led many mathematicians to avoid the equal sign. The process has not always gone smoothly.

Researchers finally seem to have a quantum computer that can outperform a classical computer. But what does that really mean?

Is nature inherently random or is perfect randomness just an illusion based on our ignorance?

The twin primes conjecture is one of the most important and difficult questions in mathematics. Two mathematicians have solved a parallel version of the problem for small number systems.

The way you learned to multiply works, but computers employ a faster algorithm.

Mathematicians and neuroscientists have created the first anatomically accurate model that explains how vision is possible.

Does objective, perfect randomness exist, or is randomness merely a product of our ignorance?

The ancient Greeks wondered when “irrational” numbers can be approximated by fractions. By proving the longstanding Duffin-Schaeffer conjecture, two mathematicians have provided a complete answer.