A deceptively simple math proposition known as the Kakeya conjecture underpins a tower of other questions…
Author: Jordana Cepelewicz
Mathematicians Find Hidden Structure in a Common Type of Space
In 50 years of searching, mathematicians found only one example of a “subspace design” that fit…
‘Nasty’ Geometry Breaks a Decades-Old Tiling Conjecture
Mathematicians predicted that if they imposed enough restrictions on how a shape might tile space, they…
A Teenager Solved a Stubborn Prime Number ‘Look-Alike’ Riddle
In his senior year of high school, Daniel Larsen proved a key theorem about Carmichael numbers—strange…
A New Computer Proof ‘Blows Up’ Centuries-Old Fluid Equations
For more than 250 years, mathematicians have wondered if the Euler equations might sometimes fail to…
A Grad Student’s Side Project Proves a Prime Number Conjecture
Jared Duker Lichtman proved a long-standing conjecture relating prime numbers to a broad class of “primitive”…
Math’s ‘Oldest Problem Ever’ Gets a New Answer
A new proof significantly strengthens a decades-old result about the ubiquity of ways to represent whole…
Mathematicians Outwit a Hidden Number ‘Conspiracy’
Decades ago, a mathematician posed a warmup problem for difficult questions about prime numbers. It turned…
To Learn More Quickly, Brain Cells Break Their DNA
DNA double-strand breaks are associated with cancer and aging. A new study shows neurons can use…
Animals Can Count. How Far Does Their Number Sense Go?
Crows recently demonstrated an understanding of the concept of zero. It’s only the latest evidence of…