Mathematics

In honor of the actor and activist Nichelle Nichols, this month’s puzzle imagines a Star Trek adventure in which her character, Lieutenant Uhura, faces a life-and-death conundrum.

Two mathematicians have proven Patterson’s conjecture, which was designed to explain a strange pattern in sums involving prime numbers.

Ever since Archimedes, mathematicians have been fascinated by equations that involve a difference between squares. Now two mathematicians have proven how often these equations have solutions, concluding a decades-old quest.

The solutions to Einstein’s equations that describe a spinning black hole won’t blow up, even when poked or prodded.

Readers balanced logical reasoning and mathematical insights to find phony coins with a double-pan balance scale.

The Kakeya conjecture predicts how much room you need to point a line in every direction. In one number system after another — with one important exception — mathematicians have been proving it true.

Mathematicians have been studying the distribution of prime numbers for thousands of years. Recent results about a curious kind of prime offer a new take on how spread out they can be.

In 1973, Paul Erdős asked if it was possible to assemble sets of “triples” — three points on a graph — so that they abide by two seemingly incompatible rules. A new proof shows it can always be done.

What makes a proof stronger than a guess? What does evidence look like in the realm of mathematical abstraction? Hear the mathematician Melanie Matchett Wood explain how probability helps to guide number theorists toward certainty.