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 ...

The original version of this story appeared in Quanta Magazine. A new proof has brought mathematicians one step closer to understanding the hidden order of those “atoms of arithmetic,” the prime ...

It’s not often that a mathematics textbook is described as “gorgeous” or “a work of practical art.” But An Illustrated Theory of Numbers by Martin Weissman, associate professor of mathematics at UC ...

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 ...

A survey of contemporary topics in mathematics such as: voting systems and power, apportionment, fair division of divisible and indivisible assets, efficient distribution, scheduling and routing, ...

Number theorist Peter Scholze, who became Germany’s youngest ever full professor aged 24, and geometrician Caucher Birkar—a Kurdish refugee—are among the winners of this year’s Fields Medals, the most ...

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 ...