2022 Fields and Abacus Medals
A Solver of the Hardest Easy Problems About Prime Numbers
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.
2022 Fields and Abacus Medals
In Times of Scarcity, War and Peace, a Ukrainian Finds the Magic in Math
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.
networks
Researchers Achieve ‘Absurdly Fast’ Algorithm for Network Flow
Computer scientists can now solve a decades-old problem in practically the time it takes to write it down.
cryptography
Which Computational Universe Do We Live In?
Cryptographers want to know which of five possible worlds we inhabit, which will reveal whether truly secure cryptography is even possible.
computational complexity
Researchers Identify ‘Master Problem’ Underlying All Cryptography
The existence of secure cryptography depends on one of the oldest questions in computational complexity.
combinatorics
Mathematician Hurls Structure and Disorder Into Century-Old Problem
A new paper shows how to create longer disordered strings than mathematicians had thought possible, proving that a well-known recent conjecture is “spectacularly wrong.”
group theory
Mathematician Disproves 80-Year-Old Algebra Conjecture
Inside the symmetries of a crystal shape, a postdoctoral researcher has unearthed a counterexample to a basic conjecture about multiplicative inverses.
geometry
Statistics Postdoc Tames Decades-Old Geometry Problem
To the surprise of experts in the field, a postdoctoral statistician has solved one of the most important problems in high-dimensional convex geometry.
computer security
Computer Scientists Achieve ‘Crown Jewel’ of Cryptography
A cryptographic master tool called indistinguishability obfuscation has for years seemed too good to be true. Three researchers have figured out that it can work.