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random walk

geometry

Statistics Postdoc Tames Decades-Old Geometry Problem

By Erica Klarreich
March 1, 2021
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To the surprise of experts in the field, a postdoctoral statistician has solved one of the most important problems in high-dimensional convex geometry.

Illustration of a flying albatross, a swimming basking shark and the Lévy walk paths they take.
behavior

Random Search Wired Into Animals May Help Them Hunt

By Liam Drew
June 11, 2020
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The nervous systems of foraging and predatory animals may prompt them to move along a special kind of random path called a Lévy walk to find food efficiently when no clues are available.

Multimedia

The Map of Mathematics

By Kevin Hartnett
February 13, 2020
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Explore our surprisingly simple, absurdly ambitious and necessarily incomplete guide to the boundless mathematical universe.

Abstractions blog

How Randomness Can Make Math Easier

By Kevin Hartnett
July 9, 2019
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Randomness would seem to make a mathematical statement harder to prove. In fact, it often does the opposite.

geometry

Random Surfaces Hide an Intricate Order

By Kevin Hartnett
July 2, 2019
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Mathematicians have proved that a random process applied to a random surface will yield consistent patterns.

Art for "In the Universe of Equations, Virtually All Are Prime"
number theory

In the Universe of Equations, Virtually All Are Prime

By Kevin Hartnett
December 10, 2018
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Equations, like numbers, cannot always be split into simpler elements.

Information dog bottleneck
Wired to Learn: The Next AI

New Theory Cracks Open the Black Box of Deep Learning

By Natalie Wolchover
September 21, 2017
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A new idea is helping to explain the puzzling success of today’s artificial-intelligence algorithms — and might also explain how human brains learn.

Insights puzzle

Solution: ‘A Drunkard’s Walk in Manhattan’

By Pradeep Mutalik
September 7, 2016
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City blocks help illustrate why walking randomly tends to take you away from your starting point.

Insights puzzle

A Drunkard’s Walk in Manhattan

By Pradeep Mutalik
August 18, 2016
Read Later

Why is it that when you walk randomly, the more you walk, the farther you get from your starting point?


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