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Photo illustration of Constantinos Daskalakis
2018 Fields Medal and Nevanlinna Prize

A Poet of Computation Who Uncovers Distant Truths

By Erica Klarreich
August 1, 2018
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The theoretical computer scientist Constantinos Daskalakis has won the Rolf Nevanlinna Prize for explicating core questions in game theory and machine learning.

Photo of Dr. Peter Scholze
2018 Fields Medal and Nevanlinna Prize

A Master of Numbers and Shapes Who Is Rewriting Arithmetic

By Erica Klarreich
August 1, 2018
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The 30-year-old math sensation Peter Scholze is now one of the youngest Fields medalists for “the revolution that he launched in arithmetic geometry.”

Photo illustration of Caucher Birkar
2018 Fields Medal and Nevanlinna Prize

An Innovator Who Brings Order to an Infinitude of Equations

By Kevin Hartnett
August 1, 2018
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The mathematician Caucher Birkar was born on a subsistence farm and raised in the middle of the brutal war between Iran and Iraq. After fleeing to England, he has gone on to impose order on a wild landscape of mathematical equations.

Photo illustration of Alessio Figalli
2018 Fields Medal and Nevanlinna Prize

A Traveler Who Finds Stability in the Natural World

By Kevin Hartnett
August 1, 2018
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The mathematician Alessio Figalli is rarely in one place for very long. But his work has established the stability of everything from crystals to weather fronts by using concepts derived from Napoleonic fortifications.

Art for "Major Quantum Computing Advance Made Obsolete by Teenager"
quantum computing

Major Quantum Computing Advance Made Obsolete by Teenager

By Kevin Hartnett
July 31, 2018
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18-year-old Ewin Tang has proven that classical computers can solve the “recommendation problem” nearly as fast as quantum computers. The result eliminates one of the best examples of quantum speedup.

Illustation for "The Slippery Math of Causation"
Insights puzzle

Solution: ‘The Slippery Math of Causation’

By Pradeep Mutalik
June 29, 2018
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The all-too-intuitive picture of a straight arrow going from cause to effect is far too simplistic to describe the real world.

Photo of Jupiter for "Mathematicians Tame Turbulence in Flattened Fluids"
fluid dynamics

Mathematicians Tame Turbulence in Flattened Fluids

By Joshua Sokol
June 27, 2018
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By squeezing fluids into flat sheets, researchers can get a handle on the strange ways that turbulence feeds energy into a system instead of eating it away.

Illustration for "Mathematics Shows How to Ensure Evolution"
mathematical biology

Mathematics Shows How to Ensure Evolution

By John Rennie
June 26, 2018
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New results emerging from graph theory prove that the way a population is organized can guarantee the eventual triumph of natural selection — or permanently thwart it.

Photo of Carina Curto
Q&A

Her Key to Modeling Brains: Ignore the Right Details

By Siobhan Roberts
June 19, 2018
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Being able to think like a physicist helps Carina Curto, a mathematician-turned-neuroscientist, pull insights about the human brain out of theoretical models.


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