Katie has a PhD in maths, specializing in the intersection of dynamical systems and number theory. She reports on topics from maths and history to society and animals. Katie has a PhD in maths, ...

Hannah Cairo found herself stuck on a problem that wouldn’t leave her mind. It wasn’t a regular homework assignment—it was a decades-old mathematical puzzle believed to be true by leading experts in ...

The original version of this story appeared in Quanta Magazine. Much of mathematics is driven by intuition, by a deep-rooted sense of what should be true. But sometimes instinct can lead a ...

En 2025, ça bouge pour les conjectures mathématiques! Des chercheurs ont reformulé une partie de l’hypothèse de Riemann et remis en cause l’hypothèse du continu. Pham Tiep a résolu deux problèmes ...

Much of mathematics is driven by intuition, by a deep-rooted sense of what should be true. But sometimes instinct can lead a mathematician astray. Early evidence might not represent the bigger picture ...

Consider a pencil lying on your desk. Try to spin it around so that it points once in every direction, but make sure it sweeps over as little of the desk’s surface as possible. You might twirl the ...