Mathematics

The security system that underlies the internet makes use of a curious fact: You can broadcast part of your encryption to make your information much more secure.

Two mathematicians have renewed a debate about the fundamental nature of some of math’s most important equations.

With lots of data, a strong model and statistical thinking, scientists can make predictions about all sorts of complex phenomena. Today, this practice is evolving to harness the power of machine learning and massive datasets. In this episode, co-host Steven Strogatz speaks with statistician Emmanuel Candès about black boxes, uncertainty and the power of inductive reasoning.

It was intuitive, even obvious. It was also wrong.

Born poor in colonial India and dead at 32, Ramanujan had fantastical, out-of-nowhere visions that continue to shape the field today.

Zero, which was invented late in history, is special among numbers. New studies are uncovering how the brain creates something out of nothing.

A new proof about prime numbers illuminates the subtle relationship between addition and multiplication — and raises hopes for progress on the famous abc conjecture.

Across the social and biological sciences, statisticians use a technique that leverages randomness to deal with the unknown.

Mathematicians have long wondered how “shapes of constant width” behave in higher dimensions. A surprisingly simple construction has given them an answer.