Abstractions blog

A new paper claims that a common digital security system could be tweaked to withstand attacks even from a powerful quantum computer.

A system of seven Earth-like exoplanets appeared to be unstable. Now their orbits have been rewritten in the music of the spheres.

Ramsey’s theorem predicts a surprising (and useful) consistency in the organization of graphs. Here’s a simple visual proof of how it works.

To avoid garbled messages, mathematicians might translate them into geometric form.

Physicists are attempting to map the distribution of the prime numbers to the energy levels of a particular quantum system.

The French mathematician was cited “for his pivotal role in the development of the mathematical theory of wavelets.”

Top women in mathematics and physics discuss how they got to where they are — and why there aren’t more of them.

19th-century mathematicians thought the “roots of unity” were the key to solving Fermat’s Last Theorem. Then they discovered a fatal flaw.

The circadian clock is in nearly every cell, and researchers have untangled many of its secrets. But sleep has been harder to pin down.