Algebra

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.

Long considered solved, David Hilbert’s question about seventh-degree polynomials is leading researchers to a new web of mathematical connections.

Mathematicians have long grappled with the reality that some problems just don’t have solutions.

Representation theory was initially dismissed. Today, it’s central to much of mathematics.

Explore our surprisingly simple, absurdly ambitious and necessarily incomplete guide to the boundless mathematical universe.

New work on the problem of “scissors congruence” explains when it’s possible to slice up one shape and reassemble it as another.

Odd enough to potentially model the strangeness of the physical world, complex numbers with “imaginary” components are rooted in the familiar.