We care about your data, and we'd like to use cookies to give you a smooth browsing experience. Please agree and read more about our privacy policy.
Quanta Homepage
  • Physics
  • Mathematics
  • Biology
  • Computer Science
  • Topics
  • Archive

What's up in

Mathematics

Latest Articles

mathematical physics

A New Symmetry Shakes Up Physics

By Kevin Hartnett
April 18, 2023
Comment
Read Later

So-called “higher symmetries” are illuminating everything from particle decays to the behavior of complex quantum systems.

combinatorics

Mathematicians Find Hidden Structure in a Common Type of Space

By Jordana Cepelewicz
April 12, 2023
Comment
Read Later

In 50 years of searching, mathematicians found only one example of a “subspace design” in a vector space. A new proof reveals that there are infinitely more out there.

geometry

Hobbyist Finds Math’s Elusive ‘Einstein’ Tile

By Erica Klarreich
April 4, 2023
Comment
Read Later

The surprisingly simple tile is the first single, connected tile that can fill the entire plane in a pattern that never repeats — and can’t be made to fill it in a repeating way.

Quantized Columns

The Colorful Problem That Has Long Frustrated Mathematicians

By David S. Richeson
March 29, 2023
Comment
Read Later

The four-color problem is simple to explain, but its complex proof continues to be both celebrated and despised.

Q&A

Emmy Murphy Is a Mathematician Who Finds Beauty in Flexibility

By Erica Klarreich
March 27, 2023
Comment
Read Later

The prize-winning geometer feels most fulfilled when exploring the fertile ground where constraint meets creation.

Quantized Academy

The Symmetry That Makes Solving Math Equations Easy

By Patrick Honner
March 24, 2023
Comment
Read Later

Learn why the quadratic formula works and why quadratics are easier to solve than cubics.

The Joy of Why

Is There Math Beyond the Equal Sign?

By Steven Strogatz
March 22, 2023
Comment
Read Later

Can mathematics handle things that are essentially the same without being exactly equal? Category theorist Eugenia Cheng and host Steven Strogatz discuss the power and pleasures of abstraction.

An illustration of a sequence that avoid arithmetic progression, shown as a blue staircase jumping among numbers from one to forty.
combinatorics

Surprise Computer Science Proof Stuns Mathematicians

By Leila Sloman
March 21, 2023
Comment
Read Later

For decades, mathematicians have been inching forward on a problem about which sets contain evenly spaced patterns of three numbers. Last month, two computer scientists blew past all of those results.

A panoply of colored fractions
combinatorics

Coloring by Numbers Reveals Arithmetic Patterns in Fractions

By Leila Sloman
March 15, 2023
Comment
Read Later

In a recent paper, two mathematicians showed that a particular pattern is unavoidable when fractions are categorized.


Previous
  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5
  • ...
  • 50
Next
The Quanta Newsletter

Get highlights of the most important news delivered to your email inbox

Recent newsletters
Quanta Homepage
Facebook
Twitter
Youtube
Instagram

  • About Quanta
  • Archive
  • Contact Us
  • Terms & Conditions
  • Privacy Policy
  • Simons Foundation
All Rights Reserved © 2023