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A science fiction novelist and an internet commenter made breakthroughs on a longstanding problem about the number of ways you can arrange a set of items. What did they discover?
A new proof from the Australian science fiction writer Greg Egan and a 2011 proof anonymously posted online are now being hailed as significant advances on a puzzle mathematicians have been studying for at least 25 years.
How many colors do you need to color an infinite plane so that no points 1 unit apart are the same color?
By making the first progress on the “chromatic number of the plane” problem in over 60 years, an anti-aging pundit has achieved mathematical immortality.
Triangles fit effortlessly together, as do squares. When it comes to pentagons, what gives?
Federico Ardila opens up about his journey as a mathematician, teacher, Colombian transplant, DJ and creator of mathematical spaces.
A California housewife who in the 1970s discovered four new types of tessellating pentagons is dead at 94.
A French mathematician has completed the classification of all convex pentagons, and therefore all convex polygons, that tile the plane.
Big advances in math can happen when mathematicians move ideas into areas where they seem like they shouldn’t belong.