If pure math can teach us anything, it’s this: occasionally, your special interest might just change the world. For Joshua Zahl and Hong Wang, that special interest was the Kakeya conjecture. “I read ...

Some scientific discoveries matter because they reveal something new — the double helical structure of DNA, for example, or the existence of black holes. However, some revelations are profound because ...

The next number has to be 32, right? The pattern is clear: To find the next number, double the current one. We have 1 × 2 = 2; 2 × 2 = 4; 4 × 2 = 8; 8 × 2 = 16. The next number should be 16 × 2 = 32.

The one source of truth is mathematics. Every statement is a pure logical deduction from foundational axioms, resulting in absolute certainty. Since Andrew Wiles proved Fermat’s Last Theorem, you’d be ...

Ananyo Bhattacharya is chief science writer at the London Institute for Mathematical Sciences and the author of The Man from the Future: The Visionary Ideas of John von Neumann. One of the biggest ...

When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Here’s how it works. A mathematician has solved a 30-year-old problem at the boundary between mathematics and computer ...

The Langlands program has inspired and befuddled mathematicians for more than 50 years. A major advance has now opened up new worlds for them to explore One of the biggest stories in science has been ...