Samuel Velasco/Quanta Magazine
A team of four prominent mathematicians, including two Fields medalists, proved a conjecture described as a “holy grail of additive combinatorics.”
Erin Calipari works to understand how drugs like opioids and cocaine alter learning circuits and neurochemistry in one of the country’s epicenters of substance use disorder and addiction.
A century ago, the Stern-Gerlach experiment established the truth of quantum mechanics. Now it’s being used to probe the clash of quantum theory and gravity.
Researchers prove that navigating certain systems of vectors is among the most complex computational problems.
Mathematicians prove a theorem that illuminates the geometry of universes with tiny amounts of mass.
Paradoxically, natural selection can sometimes seem to block organisms from evolving useful adaptations. But a new study of “fitness landscapes” and antibiotic resistance in bacteria shows that life still finds a way.
For 50 years, physicists have understood current as a flow of charged particles. But a new experiment has found that in at least one strange material, this understanding falls apart.
How Fermat’s less famous “little theorem” got mathematicians young and old to play with prime-like Carmichael numbers.
Modular forms are one of the most beautiful and mysterious objects in mathematics. What are they?
Artificial intelligence has bested humans at problem-solving challenges like chess and Go. Is mathematics research next? Steven Strogatz speaks with mathematician Kevin Buzzard to learn about the effort to translate math into language that computers understand.
Illuminating basic science and math research through public service journalism.
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