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The Joy of Why

How Do Mathematicians Know Their Proofs Are Correct?

By Steven Strogatz
July 13, 2022
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What makes a proof stronger than a guess? What does evidence look like in the realm of mathematical abstraction? Hear the mathematician Melanie Matchett Wood explain how probability helps to guide number theorists toward certainty.

Daniel Spielman sits in front of an elaborate window at Yale University
Q&A

The Computer Scientist Who Parlays Failures Into Breakthroughs

By Mordechai Rorvig
June 13, 2022
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Daniel Spielman solves important problems by thinking hard — about other questions.

An illustration of a person walking across a surface with many holes.
topology

Unimaginable Surfaces Discovered After Decades-Long Search

By Leila Sloman
June 2, 2022
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Using ideas borrowed from graph theory, two mathematicians have shown that extremely complex surfaces are easy to traverse.

Illustration of a figure standing between broken orange walls and a blue unbreakable wall with a broken sledgehammer beside it
computational complexity

Researchers Identify ‘Master Problem’ Underlying All Cryptography

By Erica Klarreich
April 6, 2022
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The existence of secure cryptography depends on one of the oldest questions in computational complexity.

An illustration of a mathematician on a ladder stringing red and blue beads against a tiled red backdrop dotted with blue circles.
combinatorics

Mathematician Hurls Structure and Disorder Into Century-Old Problem

By Erica Klarreich
December 15, 2021
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A new paper shows how to create longer disordered strings than mathematicians had thought possible, proving that a well-known recent conjecture is “spectacularly wrong.”

information theory

Researchers Defeat Randomness to Create Ideal Code

By Mordechai Rorvig
November 24, 2021
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By carefully constructing a multidimensional and well-connected graph, a team of researchers has finally created a long-sought locally testable code that can immediately betray whether it’s been corrupted.

Photo of various kinds and colors of dice
Abstractions blog

How and Why Computers Roll Loaded Dice

By Stephen Ornes
July 8, 2020
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Researchers are one step closer to injecting probability into deterministic machines.

Insights puzzle

Solution: ‘Randomness From Determinism’

By Pradeep Mutalik
November 22, 2019
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Readers’ modifications of a bean machine showed how deterministic laws are capable of producing random-seeming behavior.

Abstractions blog

Mathematicians Calculate How Randomness Creeps In

By Marcus Woo
November 12, 2019
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Mathematicians have figured out exactly how many moves it takes to randomize a 15 puzzle.


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