Mathematics

If a forest is burning and we don’t know what’s responsible, does it have a cause?

A century ago, the great mathematician David Hilbert posed a probing question in pure mathematics. A recent advance in optimization theory is bringing Hilbert’s work into a world of self-driving cars.

Mathematicians have disproved the strong cosmic censorship conjecture. Their work answers one of the most important questions in the study of general relativity and changes the way we think about space-time.

Zeta values seem to connect distant geometric worlds. In a new proof, mathematicians finally explain why.

The latest in a new series of proofs brings theoretical computer scientists within striking distance of one of the great conjectures of their discipline.

By making the first progress on the “chromatic number of the plane” problem in over 60 years, an anti-aging pundit has achieved mathematical immortality.

The statistician Donald Richards lives to uncover subtle patterns hiding in real-world data.

Decades after physicists happened upon a stunning mathematical coincidence, researchers are getting close to understanding the link between two seemingly unrelated geometric universes.

What does John Nash’s game theory equilibrium concept look like in Rock-Paper-Scissors?