Latest Articles
Smart Swarms Seek New Ways to Cooperate
New algorithms show how swarms of very simple robots can be made to work together as a group.
What Makes the Hardest Equations in Physics So Difficult?
The Navier-Stokes equations describe simple, everyday phenomena, like water flowing from a garden hose, yet they provide a million-dollar mathematical challenge.
In Praise of Simple Problems
The mathematician Richard Schwartz finds the hidden depth lurking in simple mathematical puzzles.
Mathematicians Find Wrinkle in Famed Fluid Equations
Two mathematicians prove that under certain extreme conditions, the Navier-Stokes equations output nonsense.
Mathematicians Crack the Cursed Curve
A famously difficult mathematical problem resisted solution for over 40 years. Mathematicians have finally resolved it by following an intuition that links number theory to physics.
Secret Link Uncovered Between Pure Math and Physics
An eminent mathematician reveals that his advances in the study of millennia-old mathematical questions owe to concepts derived from physics.
Best-Ever Algorithm Found for Huge Streams of Data
To efficiently analyze a firehose of data, scientists first have to break big numbers into bits.
Artificial Intelligence Learns to Learn Entirely on Its Own
A new version of AlphaGo needed no human instruction to figure out how to clobber the best Go player in the world — itself.
Visionary Mathematician Vladimir Voevodsky Dies at 51
Voevodsky’s friends remember him as constitutionally unable to compromise on the truth — a quality that led him to produce some of the most important mathematics of the 20th century.