The original version of this story appeared in Quanta Magazine. In 1994, an earthquake of a proof shook up the mathematical world. The mathematician Andrew Wiles had finally settled Fermat’s Last ...

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, ...

Their ambitions were always high. When Will Sawin and Melanie Matchett Wood first started working together in the summer of 2020, they set out to rethink the key components of some of the most ...

After the star-studded mystery thriller The Number 23 debuted in cinemas in 2007, many people became convinced that they were seeing the eponymous number everywhere. I was in school at that time, and ...

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Gerd Faltings proved a conjecture that had been unsolved for six decades, using connections between numbers and geometry. By Kenneth Chang A German mathematician, Gerd Faltings, is this year’s winner ...

Number theorist Gerd Faltings has won this year’s Abel Prize, one of the most prestigious awards in mathematics, the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters in Oslo announced on 19 March. Faltings, ...

Mathematical truths are often born of the conflict between order and disorder. Mathematicians discover patterns, and, to better understand the mysterious forces at play, they look for countervailing ...

Number theory is the branch of mathematics that deals with the properties of whole numbers. Many number theorists are motivated purely by mathematical intrigue, and historically number theory had few ...

Only a few months ago, the question felt mostly philosophical: if artificial intelligence can help solve open math problems, what happens to the idea of human genius? That question is no longer ...