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Old Problem About Mathematical Curves Falls to Young Couple
Eric Larson and Isabel Vogt have solved the interpolation problem — a centuries-old question about some of the most basic objects in geometry. Some credit goes to the chalkboard in their living room.
A Question About a Rotating Line Helps Reveal What Makes Real Numbers Special
The Kakeya conjecture predicts how much room you need to point a line in every direction. In one number system after another — with one important exception — mathematicians have been proving it true.
He Dropped Out to Become a Poet. Now He’s Won a Fields Medal.
June Huh wasn’t interested in mathematics until a chance encounter during his sixth year of college. Now his profound insights connecting combinatorics and geometry have led to math’s highest honor.
In Times of Scarcity, War and Peace, a Ukrainian Finds the Magic in Math
With her homeland mired in war, the sphere-packing number theorist Maryna Viazovska has become the second woman to win a Fields Medal in the award’s 86-year history.
The Sordid Past of the Cubic Formula
The quest to solve cubic equations led to duels, betrayals — and modern mathematics.
Special Surfaces Remain Distinct in Four Dimensions
For decades mathematicians have searched for a specific pair of surfaces that can’t be transformed into each other in four-dimensional space. Now they’ve found them.
Unimaginable Surfaces Discovered After Decades-Long Search
Using ideas borrowed from graph theory, two mathematicians have shown that extremely complex surfaces are easy to traverse.
Father-Son Team Solves Geometry Problem With Infinite Folds
The result could help researchers answer a larger question about flattening objects from the fourth dimension to the third dimension.
An Ancient Geometry Problem Falls to New Mathematical Techniques
Three mathematicians show, for the first time, how to form a square with the same area as a circle by cutting them into interchangeable pieces that can be visualized.