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random walk
geometry
Statistics Postdoc Tames Decades-Old Geometry Problem
To the surprise of experts in the field, a postdoctoral statistician has solved one of the most important problems in high-dimensional convex geometry.
behavior
Random Search Wired Into Animals May Help Them Hunt
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
Explore our surprisingly simple, absurdly ambitious and necessarily incomplete guide to the boundless mathematical universe.
Abstractions blog
How Randomness Can Make Math Easier
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
Mathematicians have proved that a random process applied to a random surface will yield consistent patterns.
number theory
In the Universe of Equations, Virtually All Are Prime
Equations, like numbers, cannot always be split into simpler elements.
Wired to Learn: The Next AI
New Theory Cracks Open the Black Box of Deep Learning
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’
City blocks help illustrate why walking randomly tends to take you away from your starting point.
Insights puzzle
A Drunkard’s Walk in Manhattan
Why is it that when you walk randomly, the more you walk, the farther you get from your starting point?