Algebra

Wei Ho, the first director of the Women and Mathematics program at the Institute for Advanced Study, combines algebra and geometry in her work on an ancient class of curves.

Rethinking questions and chasing patterns led Newton to find the connection between curves and infinite sums.

Eric Larson and Isabel Vogt have solved the interpolation problem — a centuries-old question about some of the most basic objects in geometry. Some credit goes to the chalkboard in their living room.

The quest to solve cubic equations led to duels, betrayals — and modern mathematics.

The Langlands program provides a beautifully intricate set of connections between various areas of mathematics, pointing the way toward novel solutions for old problems.

Infinite sums are among the most underrated yet powerful concepts in mathematics, capable of linking concepts across math’s vast web.

Solutions to the simplest polynomial equations — called “roots of unity” — have an elegant structure that mathematicians still use to study some of math’s greatest open questions.

Using high school algebra and geometry, and knowing just one rational point on a circle or elliptic curve, we can locate infinitely many others.

Inside the symmetries of a crystal shape, a postdoctoral researcher has unearthed a counterexample to a basic conjecture about multiplicative inverses.