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If the Universe Is a Hologram, This Long-Forgotten Math Could Decode It
...the Platonic ideal of a genius. Conversant in ancient Greek by age 6, the Hungarian made significant mathematical advances in his teens. Then, as an adult, he invented game theory...
Epic Effort to Ground Physics in Math Opens Up the Secrets of Time
By mathematically proving how individual molecules create the complex motion of fluids, three mathematicians have illuminated why time can’t flow in reverse. At the turn of the 20th century, the...
Busy Beaver Hunters Reach Numbers That Overwhelm Ordinary Math
The quest to find the longest-running simple computer program has identified a new champion. It’s physically impossible to write out the numbers involved using standard mathematical notation. Imagine that someone...
The Math That Promises to Make the World Brighter
...(LEDs are already efficient, but they could be a lot more so). My latest story, “Mathematicians Tame Rogue Waves, Lighting Up Future of LEDs,” is about a mathematical discovery that...
New Earthquake Math Predicts How Destructive They’ll Be
The “pinball” model of a slipping fault line borrows from the mathematics of avalanches. When a fault slips, it unleashes a torrent of seismic waves, not all of them alike....
Math of the Penguins
Emperor penguins display rigorously geometric spacing and mathematical efficiency when they huddle together for warmth, which may reveal secrets to their overall health. Animals have evolved to protect against the...
How Math Has Changed the Shape of Gerrymandering
...“With modern technology, you can gerrymander pretty effectively without making your shapes very weird,” said Beth Malmskog, a mathematician at Colorado College. This makes it that much harder to figure...
The Math That Explains Why Bell Curves Are Everywhere
...limit theorem, a mathematical truth so powerful that it often strikes newcomers as impossible, like a magic trick of nature. “The central limit theorem is pretty amazing because it is...
Francis Su: Math Is for Everybody
Francis Su discusses how the community of mathematicians tends to exclude certain people. Mark Skovorodko for Quanta Magazine...