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mathematics

Latest Articles

Q&A

Emmy Murphy Is a Mathematician Who Finds Beauty in Flexibility

By Erica Klarreich
March 27, 2023
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The prize-winning geometer feels most fulfilled when exploring the fertile ground where constraint meets creation.

Quantized Academy

The Symmetry That Makes Solving Math Equations Easy

By Patrick Honner
March 24, 2023
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Learn why the quadratic formula works and why quadratics are easier to solve than cubics.

The Joy of Why

Is There Math Beyond the Equal Sign?

By Steven Strogatz
March 22, 2023
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Can mathematics handle things that are essentially the same without being exactly equal? Category theorist Eugenia Cheng and host Steven Strogatz discuss the power and pleasures of abstraction.

An illustration of a sequence that avoid arithmetic progression, shown as a blue staircase jumping among numbers from one to forty.
combinatorics

Surprise Computer Science Proof Stuns Mathematicians

By Leila Sloman
March 21, 2023
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For decades, mathematicians have been inching forward on a problem about which sets contain evenly spaced patterns of three numbers. Last month, two computer scientists blew past all of those results.

A panoply of colored fractions
combinatorics

Coloring by Numbers Reveals Arithmetic Patterns in Fractions

By Leila Sloman
March 15, 2023
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In a recent paper, two mathematicians showed that a particular pattern is unavoidable when fractions are categorized.

A modular form is shown as a distorted, rainbow-hued dome atop concentric circles.
number theory

New Proof Distinguishes Mysterious and Powerful ‘Modular Forms’

By Jordana Cepelewicz
March 9, 2023
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Using “refreshingly old” tools, mathematicians resolved a 50-year-old conjecture about how to categorize important functions called modular forms, with consequences for number theory and theoretical physics.

red and orange rocket ship surrounded by purple planets with numbers on them
Puzzles

How Many Exoplanets Can You Visit in Quanta’s New Math Game?

By Thomas Lin
March 3, 2023
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Explore a universe of numbers and arithmetic in our new interactive math game, Hyperjumps!

Mathematician Lek-Heng Lim standing near some columns at the University of Chicago.
Q&A

An Applied Mathematician With an Unexpected Toolbox

By Rachel Crowell
March 1, 2023
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Lek-Heng Lim uses tools from algebra, geometry and topology to answer questions in machine learning.

a small human figure stands on a golden geometric structure while the sky is full of curving pink and purple grids
graph theory

Quantum Field Theory Pries Open Mathematical Puzzle

By Leila Sloman
February 16, 2023
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Mathematicians have struggled to understand the moduli space of graphs. A new paper uses tools from physics to peek inside.


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