Gregory Barber

Contributing Writer

Latest Articles

How We Came To Know Earth

Climate science is the most significant scientific collaboration in history. This series from Quanta Magazine guides you through basic climate science — from quantum effects to ancient hothouses, from the math of tipping points to the audacity of climate models.

The Math of Catastrophe

September 15, 2025

Tipping points in our climate predictions are both wildly dramatic and wildly uncertain. Can mathematicians make them useful?

Is Mathematics Mostly Chaos or Mostly Order?

June 20, 2025

Two new notions of infinity challenge a long-standing plan to define the mathematical universe.

Science, Promise and Peril in the Age of AI

An exploration of how artificial intelligence is changing what it means to do science and math, and what it means to be a scientist.

What Happens When AI Starts To Ask the Questions?

April 30, 2025

Technology has forever served as science’s toolbox. But now that AI is being used to develop questions and methods as well, some scientists wonder what their role is going to become.

Mathematicians Discover New Way for Spheres to ‘Kiss’

January 15, 2025

A new proof marks the first progress in decades on important cases of the so-called kissing problem. Getting there meant doing away with traditional approaches.

Teen Mathematicians Tie Knots Through a Mind-Blowing Fractal

November 26, 2024

Three high schoolers and their mentor revisited a century-old theorem to prove that all knots can be found in a fractal called the Menger sponge.

Mathematicians Discover New Shapes to Solve Decades-Old Geometry Problem

September 20, 2024

Mathematicians have long wondered how “shapes of constant width” behave in higher dimensions. A surprisingly simple construction has given them an answer.

Why Is This Shape So Terrible to Pack?

June 28, 2024

Two mathematicians have proved a long-standing conjecture that is a step on the way toward finding the worst shape for packing the plane.

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