Physics & Math, features and articles | Educational Science

Jul 31, 2019

This Mathematician's 'Mysterious' New Method Just Solved a 30-Year-Old Problem

A mathematician has solved a 30-year-old problem at the boundary between mathematics and computer science. He used an innovative, elegant proof that has his colleagues marveling at its simplicity. Hao Huang, an assistant professor of mathematics at Emory University in Atlanta, proved a mathematical idea called the sensitivity conjecture, which,...

Sep 5, 2019

Mathematician Wins $3 Million Breakthrough Prize for 'Magic Wand Theorem'

Alex Eskin, a mathematician at the University of Chicago, has won the $3 million 2019 Breakthrough Prize in Mathematics. The Breakthrough Prizes were founded in 2013 by a group of tech billionaires (as well as multihundred millionaire Anne Wojcicki, co-founder and CEO of genomics and biotech company 23andMe). The prizes...

Sep 17, 2019

Long-Standing Problem of 'Golden Ratio' and Other Irrational Numbers Solved with 'Magical Simplicity'

Most people rarely deal with irrational numbers—it would be, well, irrational, as they run on forever, and representing them accurately requires an infinite amount of space. But irrational constants such as π and √2—numbers that cannot be reduced to a simple fraction—frequently crop up in science and engineering. These unwieldy...

Oct 5, 2019

Can You Count Past Infinity?

To infinity and beyond! Have you even thought deeply about Buzz Lightyear's famous catchphrase from the Toy Story movies? Probably not. But maybe you've sometimes looked up at the night sky and wondered about the nature of infinity itself. Infinity is a weird concept, one that the human brain has...

Oct 29, 2019

Mathematicians Solve 'Twin Prime Conjecture' — In an Alternate Universe

Mathematicians have uncovered a big new piece of evidence for one of the most famous unproven ideas in mathematics, known as the twin prime conjecture. But the route they took to finding that evidence probably won't help prove the twin prime conjecture itself. The twin prime conjecture is all about...

Nov 4, 2019

Maryam Mirzakhani Won Math's Most Prestigious Medal Before She Died. Now There's a Prize in Her Honor.

A new prize was just founded to honor the late Maryam Mirzakhani, a brilliant Iranian mathematician who died of breast cancer in 2017. The $50,000 prize will go to outstanding young female mathematicians who are no more than two years out from earning their doctoral degrees. We hope that the...

Nov 25, 2019

Phi: The Golden Ratio

The number phi, often known as the golden ratio, is a mathematical concept that people have known about since the time of the ancient Greeks. It is an irrational number like pi and e, meaning that its terms go on forever after the decimal point without repeating. Over the centuries,...

Dec 16, 2019

What Are Irrational Numbers?

Irrational numbers are numbers that cannot be expressed as the ratio of two whole numbers. This is opposed to rational numbers, like 2, 7, one-fifth and -13/9, which can be, and are, expressed as the ratio of two whole numbers. When expressed as a decimal, irrational numbers go on forever...

May 30, 2020

An inmate's love of mathematics leads to discovery in number theory

There are many examples of mathematical breakthroughs achieved in prison. Maybe the most famous is from the French mathematician Andre Weil, who came up with his hugely influential conjectures while in a military prison in Rouen, France. Another mathematical giant, Srinivasan Ramanujan, started off with no formal training in mathematics...

$Happy birthday to Benoit Mandelbrot, the discoverer of fractals$

Nov 20, 2020

Happy birthday to Benoit Mandelbrot, the discoverer of fractals

Renowned mathematician Benoit Mandelbrot's birthday is today (Nov. 20) and Google published a doodle in his honor. French-American mathematician Mandelbrot is known as the father of fractal geometry, for having defined one of the most important patterns found in nature: fractals. Fractals are infinitely repeating mathematical shapes; no matter how...

Feb 14, 2021

New AI 'Ramanujan Machine' uncovers hidden patterns in numbers

A new artificially intelligent mathematician known as the Ramanujan Machine can potentially reveal hidden relationships between numbers. The machine consists of algorithms that seek out conjectures, or mathematical conclusions that are likely true but have not been proved. Conjectures are the starting points of mathematical theorems, which are conclusions that...

Jun 11, 2021

The 'friendship paradox' doesn't always explain real friendships, mathematicians say

Your friends are on average more popular than you are, according to a phenomenon known as the friendship paradox. Now, a group of mathematicians has come up with a new theory that takes the friendship paradox beyond averages, and they found that their equations describe real-world popularity differences among friends....

Jul 17, 2021

Math genius Emmy Noether endured sexism and Nazism. 100 years later, her ideas still ring true.

When Albert Einstein wrote an obituary for Emmy Noether in 1935, he described her as a creative mathematical genius who — despite unselfish, significant work over a period of many years — did not get the recognition she deserved. Noether made groundbreaking contributions to mathematics at a time when women...

Aug 17, 2021

Pi calculated to a record-breaking 62.8 trillion digits

Researchers in Switzerland are set to break the record for the most precise value of the mathematical constant pi, after using a supercomputer to calculate the famous number to its first 62.8 trillion decimal places. Pi is the ratio of a circle's circumference to its diameter. The name pi comes...

Nov 11, 2021

What is mathematics?

Mathematics is the science that deals with the logic of shape, quantity and arrangement. Math is all around us, in everything we do. It is the building block for everything in our daily lives, including mobile devices, computers, software, architecture (ancient and modern), art, money, engineering and even sports. Since...