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combinatorics
number theory
How a Strange Grid Reveals Hidden Connections Between Simple Numbers
A graduate student has helped illuminate a long-suspected connection between addition and multiplication.
mathematical physics
A Child’s Puzzle Has Helped Unlock the Secrets of Magnetism
People have known about magnets since ancient times, but the physics of ferromagnetism remains a mystery. Now a familiar puzzle is getting physicists closer to the answer.
Quantized Academy
Unscrambling the Hidden Secrets of Superpermutations
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?
combinatorics
Mystery Math Whiz and Novelist Advance Permutation Problem
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.
Quantized Academy
Four Is Not Enough
How many colors do you need to color an infinite plane so that no points 1 unit apart are the same color?
graph theory
Decades-Old Graph Problem Yields to Amateur Mathematician
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.
Quantized Academy
The (Math) Problem With Pentagons
Triangles fit effortlessly together, as do squares. When it comes to pentagons, what gives?
Q&A
A Mathematician Who Dances to the Joys and Sorrows of Discovery
Federico Ardila opens up about his journey as a mathematician, teacher, Colombian transplant, DJ and creator of mathematical spaces.
Abstractions blog
Marjorie Rice’s Secret Pentagons
A California housewife who in the 1970s discovered four new types of tessellating pentagons is dead at 94.