Applied math

The central limit theorem started as a bar trick for 18th-century gamblers. Now scientists rely on it every day.

Columnist Natalie Wolchover explores whether applied category theory can be “green” math.

The leading approach to the simplex method, a widely used technique for balancing complex logistical constraints, can’t get any better.

Tipping points in our climate predictions are both wildly dramatic and wildly uncertain. Can mathematicians make them useful?

Amid the chaos of revolutionary France, one man’s mathematical obsession gave way to a calculation that now underpins much of mathematics and physics. The calculation, called the Fourier transform, decomposes any function into its parts.

The mathematician Tai-Danae Bradley is using category theory to try to understand both human and AI-generated language.

A simple, widely used mathematical technique can finally be applied to boundlessly complex problems.

Physicists and marine biologists built a quantitative framework that predicts how coral polyps collectively construct a variety of coral shapes.

Across the social and biological sciences, statisticians use a technique that leverages randomness to deal with the unknown.