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Why the Legendary Erdős Problems Are Falling to AI
AI’s greatest mathematical successes have come from answers to problems posed by a mid-20th century iconoclast. By examining what makes the Erdős problems unique, mathematicians are trying to understand how...
A Brazilian Wunderkind Who Calms Chaos
...in math and nature. “It’s like a glue that connects many other subjects,” Krikorian said. Of the “two cultures of mathematics” described by the University of Cambridge mathematician and 1998...
He Dropped Out to Become a Poet. Now He’s Won a Fields Medal.
June Huh wasn’t interested in mathematics until a chance encounter during his sixth year of college. Now his profound insights connecting combinatorics and geometry have led to math’s highest honor....
The Tricky Translation of Mathematical Ideas
Big advances in math can happen when mathematicians move ideas into areas where they seem like they shouldn’t belong. My latest story is about the mathematician June Huh, who came...
Amateur Mathematician Finds Smallest Universal Cover
...John Baez, a mathematician at the University of California, Riverside. Baez lifted Lebesgue’s universal covering problem out of obscurity when he wrote about it in 2013 on his popular math...
The NASA Engineer Who’s a Mathematician at Heart
...Langley Research Center. However, she soon discovered that her role as a mathematician was limited to performing time-consuming calculations by hand. To do the creative mathematical work she craved, Darden...
Mathematicians Set Numbers in Motion to Unlock Their Secrets
...“Elliptic curves are still mysterious enough that they’re generating new math all the time,” said Matt Baker, a mathematician at the Georgia Institute of Technology. Mathematicians are particularly interested in...
Teen Mathematicians Tie Knots Through a Mind-Blowing Fractal
...professional and amateur mathematicians alike. One reason: It looks cool. In 2014, hundreds of math enthusiasts participated in a global effort, called MegaMenger, to build finite, 200-pound versions of the...
Why the Key to a Mathematical Life is Collaboration
...1950s and ’60s, and enjoyed math as a young child. Her father, an engineer, encouraged her interest, telling her that “mathematics gives you power” — the power to understand chemistry,...