If pure math can teach us anything, it’s this: occasionally, your special interest might just change the world. For Joshua Zahl and Hong Wang, that special interest was the Kakeya conjecture. “I read ...

Number theorist Andrew Granville on what mathematics really is — and why objectivity is never quite within reach. In 2012, the mathematician Shinichi Mochizuki claimed he had solved the abc conjecture ...

Two US high schoolers believe they have cracked a mathematical mystery left unproven for centuries. Calcea Johnson and Ne'Kiya Jackson looked at the Pythagorean theorem, foundational to trigonometry.

Computer-assisted of mathematical proofs are not new. For example, computers were used to confirm the so-called 'four color theorem.' In a short release, 'Proof by computer,' the American Mathematical ...

When a top-tier mathematician announced in August that he had proved one of the greatest problems in mathematics, the claim was trumpeted in the New York Times, Nature, Science and the Boston Globe.

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 ...

Peter Scholze wants to rebuild much of modern mathematics, starting from one of its cornerstones. Now, he has received validation for a proof at the heart of his quest from an unlikely source: a ...