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mathematics

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Steven Strogatz listens to a podcast guest speak about many scientific and mathematical subjects.
Quantized Columns

Why I’m Hosting The Joy of x Podcast

By Steven Strogatz
January 15, 2020
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The noted mathematician and author Steven Strogatz explains why he wanted to share intimate conversations with leading researchers from diverse fields in his new podcast.

Abstractions blog

For Fluid Equations, a Steady Flow of Progress

By Kevin Hartnett
January 13, 2020
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A startling experimental discovery about how fluids behave started a wave of important mathematical proofs.

Quantized Academy

How Simple Math Can Cover Even the Most Complex Holes

By Patrick Honner
January 8, 2020
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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.

Art for "Quanta’s Year in Math and Computer Science (2019)"
2019 in Review

The Year in Math and Computer Science

By Bill Andrews
December 23, 2019
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Mathematicians and computer scientists made big progress in number theory, graph theory, machine learning and quantum computing, even as they reexamined our fundamental understanding of mathematics and neural networks.

Animation of two rings of fluid approaching each other and colliding.
fluid dynamics

Famous Fluid Equations Spring a Leak

By Kevin Hartnett
December 18, 2019
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Researchers have spent centuries looking for a scenario in which the Euler fluid equations fail. Now a mathematician has finally found one.

Animated graphic showing different ways many numbers can arrive at 1 via the Collatz process
number theory

Mathematician Proves Huge Result on ‘Dangerous’ Problem

By Kevin Hartnett
December 11, 2019
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Mathematicians regard the Collatz conjecture as a quagmire and warn each other to stay away. But now Terence Tao has made more progress than anyone in decades.

Insights puzzle

Does Natural Law Need Elegant Mathematics?

By Pradeep Mutalik
December 5, 2019
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Many of us are drawn to beauty in mathematics. But is that the way nature really works?

An illustration of a woman sitting in a field embroidering a flower pattern. Around her grow wildflowers that appear to be randomly distributed but whose colors reveal a hidden pattern.
number theory

Mathematicians Catch a Pattern by Figuring Out How to Avoid It

By Kevin Hartnett
November 25, 2019
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We finally know how big a set of numbers can get before it has to contain a pattern known as a “polynomial progression.”

Insights puzzle

Solution: ‘Randomness From Determinism’

By Pradeep Mutalik
November 22, 2019
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Readers’ modifications of a bean machine showed how deterministic laws are capable of producing random-seeming behavior.


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