Applied math

The color of LED lights is controlled by a clumsy process. A new mathematical discovery may make it easier for us to get the hues we want.

The mathematician Svitlana Mayboroda and collaborators have figured out how to predict the behavior of electrons — a mathematical discovery that could have immediate practical effects.

Powerful new quantitative tools are now available to combat partisan bias in the drawing of voting districts.

The author shows how new mathematical techniques can be used to revitalize a 650-year-old work of art.

Machine learning works spectacularly well, but mathematicians aren’t quite sure why.

A conversation with the mathematical physicist Freeman Dyson on quantum electrodynamics, climate change and his latest pet project.

Improvements in how densely spheres and other shapes can be packed together could lead to advances in materials science, deep space communication and theoretical physics.