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Mathematics

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What Are Sheaves?

July 19, 2024

These metaphorical gardens have become central objects in modern mathematics.

‘Sensational’ Proof Delivers New Insights Into Prime Numbers

July 15, 2024

The proof creates stricter limits on potential exceptions to the famous Riemann hypothesis.

Q&A

How America’s Fastest Swimmers Use Math to Win Gold

July 10, 2024

Number theorist Ken Ono is teaching Olympians to swim more efficiently.

What Can Tiling Patterns Teach Us?

July 3, 2024

If you cover a surface with tiles, repetitive patterns always emerge — or do they? In this week’s episode, mathematician Natalie Priebe Frank and co-host Janna Levin discuss how recent breakthroughs in tiling can unlock structural secrets in the natural world.

With Fifth Busy Beaver, Researchers Approach Computation’s Limits

July 2, 2024

After decades of uncertainty, a motley team of programmers has proved precisely how complicated simple computer programs can get.

Why Is This Shape So Terrible to Pack?

June 28, 2024

Two mathematicians have proved a long-standing conjecture that is a step on the way toward finding the worst shape for packing the plane.

How the Square Root of 2 Became a Number

June 21, 2024

Useful mathematical concepts, like the number line, can linger for millennia before they are rigorously defined.

How Is Science Even Possible?

June 20, 2024

How are scientists able to crack fundamental questions about nature and life? How does math make the complex cosmos understandable? In this episode, the physicist Nigel Goldenfeld and co-host Steven Strogatz explore the deep foundations of the scientific process.

In Highly Connected Networks, There’s Always a Loop

June 7, 2024

Mathematicians show that graphs of a certain common type must contain a route that visits each point exactly once.

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