The original version of this story appeared in Quanta Magazine. Imagine a town with two widget merchants. Customers prefer cheaper widgets, so the merchants must compete to set the lowest price.

All of modern mathematics is built on the foundation of set theory, the study of how to organize abstract collections of objects. But in general, research mathematicians don’t need to think about it ...

Why the challenge of truly representative democracy is so complex. Moon Duchin, who leads the University of Chicago’s Data and Democracy Research Initiative, explores how math can help solve ...

Imagine a town with two widget merchants. Customers prefer cheaper widgets, so the merchants must compete to set the lowest price. Unhappy with their meager profits, they meet one night in a ...

Terence Tao, one of the world’s foremost mathematicians, who is often called the “Mozart of Math,” would rather not talk politics. “I do scientific research,” Tao said. “I vote, I sign a petition, but ...

You’re at the checkout screen after an online shopping spree, ready to enter your credit card number. You type it in and instantly see a red error message ...

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 ...

Google’s June 2025 Core Update just finished. What’s notable is that while some say it was a big update, it didn’t feel disruptive, indicating that the changes may have been more subtle than game ...

Abstract: Graph theory is a powerful tool for addressing problems involving discrete structures, such as determining the shortest length of connected river networks or the shortest distance between ...

For over a decade, a mysterious mathematical theory has perplexed mathematicians worldwide. Known as the Inter-universal Teichmüller Theory (IUT), it is so complex and hard to understand that even ...

Google DeepMind today pulled the curtain back on AlphaEvolve, an artificial-intelligence agent that can invent brand-new computer algorithms — then put them straight to work inside the company's vast ...