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A Number Theorist Who Connects Math to Other Creative Pursuits
Jordan Ellenberg enjoys studying — and writing about — the mathematics underlying everyday phenomena.
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The Math of Social Distancing Is a Lesson in Geometry
How to safely reopen offices, schools and other public spaces while keeping people six feet apart comes down to a question mathematicians have been studying for centuries.
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To Win This Numbers Game, Learn to Avoid Math Patterns
Sizing up patternless sets is hard, so mathematicians rely on simple bounds to help answer their questions.
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How Rational Math Catches Slippery Irrational Numbers
Finding the best way to approximate the ever-elusive irrational numbers pits the infinitely large against the infinitely small.
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How Simple Math Can Cover Even the Most Complex Holes
No one knows how to find the smallest shape that can cover all other shapes of a certain width. But high school geometry is getting us closer to an answer.
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Why the Sum of Three Cubes Is a Hard Math Problem
Looking for answers in infinite space is hard. High school math can help narrow your search.
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On Your Mark, Get Set, Multiply
The way you learned to multiply works, but computers employ a faster algorithm.
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Color Me Polynomial
Polynomials aren’t just exercises in abstraction. They’re good at illuminating structure in surprising places.
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How Geometry, Data and Neighbors Predict Your Favorite Movies
A little high school geometry can help you understand the basic math behind movie recommendation engines.