Latest Articles
Hobbyist Finds Math’s Elusive ‘Einstein’ Tile
The surprisingly simple tile is the first single, connected tile that can fill the entire plane in a pattern that never repeats — and can’t be made to fill it in a repeating way.
Emmy Murphy Is a Mathematician Who Finds Beauty in Flexibility
The prize-winning geometer feels most fulfilled when exploring the fertile ground where constraint meets creation.
Mathematicians Roll Dice and Get Rock-Paper-Scissors
Mathematicians have uncovered a surprising wealth of rock-paper-scissors-like patterns in randomly chosen dice.
Mathematical Trio Advances Centuries-Old Number Theory Problem
The work — the first-ever limit on how many whole numbers can be written as the sum of two cubed fractions — makes significant headway on “a recurring embarrassment for number theorists.”
‘Monumental’ Math Proof Solves Triple Bubble Problem and More
The decades-old Sullivan’s conjecture, about the best way to minimize the surface area of a bubble cluster, was thought to be out of reach for three bubbles and up — until a new breakthrough result.
The Math Evangelist Who Preaches Problem-Solving
Richard Rusczyk, founder of Art of Problem Solving, has a vision for bringing “joyous, beautiful math” — and problem-solving — to classrooms everywhere.
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.
Researchers Achieve ‘Absurdly Fast’ Algorithm for Network Flow
Computer scientists can now solve a decades-old problem in practically the time it takes to write it down.