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A Solver of the Hardest Easy Problems About Prime Numbers
On his way to winning a Fields Medal, James Maynard has cut a path through simple-sounding questions about prime numbers that have stumped mathematicians for centuries.
In Times of Scarcity, War and Peace, a Ukrainian Finds the Magic in Math
With her homeland mired in war, the sphere-packing number theorist Maryna Viazovska has become the second woman to win a Fields Medal in the award’s 86-year history.
Graduate Student’s Side Project Proves Prime Number Conjecture
Jared Duker Lichtman, 26, has proved a longstanding conjecture relating prime numbers to a broad class of “primitive” sets. To his adviser, it came as a “complete shock.”
New Proof Illuminates the Hidden Structure of Common Equations
Van der Waerden’s conjecture mystified mathematicians for 85 years. Its solution shows how polynomial roots relate to one another.
In Music and Math, Lillian Pierce Builds Landscapes
Lillian Pierce wants to transform access to the world of mathematics, while making headway on problems that bridge the discrete and continuous.
Math’s ‘Oldest Problem Ever’ Gets a New Answer
A new proof significantly strengthens a decades-old result about the ubiquity of ways to represent whole numbers as sums of unit fractions.
Mathematicians Prove 30-Year-Old André-Oort Conjecture
A team of mathematicians has solved an important question about how solutions to polynomial equations relate to sophisticated geometric objects called Shimura varieties.
Mathematicians Clear Hurdle in Quest to Decode Primes
Paul Nelson has solved the subconvexity problem, bringing mathematicians one step closer to understanding the Riemann hypothesis and the distribution of prime numbers.
Mathematicians Outwit Hidden Number Conspiracy
Decades ago, a mathematician posed a warmup problem for some of the most difficult questions about prime numbers. It turned out to be just as difficult to solve, until now.