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Computer Scientists Break Traveling Salesperson Record
After 44 years, there’s finally a better way to find approximate solutions to the notoriously difficult traveling salesperson problem.
Mathematician Measures the Repulsive Force Within Polynomials
Vesselin Dimitrov’s proof of the Schinzel-Zassenhaus conjecture quantifies the way special values of polynomials push each other apart.
To Win This Numbers Game, Learn to Avoid Math Patterns
Sizing up patternless sets is hard, so mathematicians rely on simple bounds to help answer their questions.
The Map of Mathematics
Explore our surprisingly simple, absurdly ambitious and necessarily incomplete guide to the boundless mathematical universe.
Mathematicians Catch a Pattern by Figuring Out How to Avoid It
We finally know how big a set of numbers can get before it has to contain a pattern known as a “polynomial progression.”
Color Me Polynomial
Polynomials aren’t just exercises in abstraction. They’re good at illuminating structure in surprising places.
Mathematicians Seal Back Door to Breaking RSA Encryption
Digital security depends on the difficulty of factoring large numbers. A new proof shows why one method for breaking digital encryption won’t work.
In the Universe of Equations, Virtually All Are Prime
Equations, like numbers, cannot always be split into simpler elements.
A Master of Numbers and Shapes Who Is Rewriting Arithmetic
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.”