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Maryna Viazovska seated on the wooden steps of an amphitheater at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne.

Thomas Lin/Quanta Magazine

2022 Fields and Abacus Medals

In Times of Scarcity, War and Peace, a Ukrainian Finds the Magic in Math

By Thomas Lin +1 authors
Erica Klarreich
―

With her homeland mired in war, the sphere-packing number theorist Maryna Viazovska has become the second woman to win a Fields Medal in the award’s 86-year history.

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By Thomas Lin +1 authors
Erica Klarreich

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Mark Braverman, in an orange shirt, stands on a path lined with trees.
2022 Fields and Abacus Medals

The Scientist Who Developed a New Way to Understand Communication

By Stephen Ornes
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Mark Braverman has spent his career translating thorny problems into the language of information complexity.

2022 Fields and Abacus Medals

A Solver of the Hardest Easy Problems About Prime Numbers

By Erica Klarreich
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On his way to winning a Fields Medal, James Maynard has cut a path through simple-sounding questions about prime numbers that have stumped mathematicians for centuries.

Hugo Duminil-Copin wearing glasses
2022 Fields and Abacus Medals

For His Sporting Approach to Math, a Fields Medal

By Jordana Cepelewicz
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With Hugo Duminil-Copin, thinking rarely happens without moving. His insights into the flow-related properties of complex networks have earned him the Fields Medal.

June Huh with a polyhedron.
2022 Fields and Abacus Medals

He Dropped Out to Become a Poet. Now He’s Won a Fields Medal.

By Jordana Cepelewicz
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June Huh wasn’t interested in mathematics until a chance encounter during his sixth year of college. Now his profound insights connecting combinatorics and geometry have led to math’s highest honor.

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The Joy of Why

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Computers doing mathematics.

Can Computers Be Mathematicians?

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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.


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a human figure stacks gold coins on an equally balanced scale
Insights puzzle

How to Weigh Truth With a Balance Scale

By Pradeep Mutalik
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Colorful opalized shell of a fossil ammonite.
geology

Life Helps Make Almost Half of Earth’s Minerals

By Joanna Thompson
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A new origins-based system for classifying minerals reveals the huge geochemical imprint that life has left on Earth. It could help us identify other worlds with life too.

A graphed cubic equation separates 16th-century scientists Niccolò Fontana Tartaglia, and Gerolamo Cardano
Quantized Columns

The Sordid Past of the Cubic Formula

By David S. Richeson
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The quest to solve cubic equations led to duels, betrayals — and modern mathematics.

Dendritic ice crystals grow from top to bottom across the frame of a video.
condensed matter physics

Controversy Continues Over Whether Hot Water Freezes Faster Than Cold

By Adam Mann
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Decades after a Tanzanian teenager initiated study of the “Mpemba effect,” the effort to confirm or refute it is leading physicists toward new theories about how substances relax to equilibrium.

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Out of a Magic Math Function, One Solution to Rule Them All

By Erica Klarreich

Sphere Packing Solved in Higher Dimensions

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A Tenacious Explorer of Abstract Surfaces

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Multimedia

The Map of Mathematics

By Kevin Hartnett
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Explore our surprisingly simple, absurdly ambitious and necessarily incomplete guide to the boundless mathematical universe.


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biophysics

This Animal’s Behavior Is Mechanically Programmed

By Jordana Cepelewicz
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Biomechanical interactions, rather than neurons, control the movements of one of the simplest animals. The discovery offers a glimpse into how animal behavior worked before neurons evolved.


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About Quanta Magazine

Illuminating basic science and math research through public service journalism.

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Quanta Magazine is committed to in-depth, accurate journalism that serves the public interest. Each article braids the complexities of science with the malleable art of storytelling and is meticulously reported, edited and fact-checked. Launched and funded by the Simons Foundation, Quanta is editorially independent — our articles do not reflect or represent the views of the foundation.

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