A simple question about a spinning needle has haunted mathematicians for more than a century. It led to the Kakeya conjecture ...

The Collatz Conjecture is a deceptively simple math problem. It has only two rules. First, pick any number. If it's even, divide it by two. If it's odd, multiply it by three and add one. This will ...

The Collatz conjecture is an unsolved conjecture in mathematics. It is named after Lothar Collatz, who first proposed it in 1937. The conjecture is also known as the 3n + 1 conjecture, as the Ulam ...

One of the oldest and simplest problems in geometry has caught mathematicians off guard—and not for the first time. Since antiquity, artists and geometers have wondered how shapes can tile the entire ...

Nearly 40 years after it was proposed, mathematicians have settled one of the most profound questions in the study of general relativity. In a paper posted online last fall, mathematicians Mihalis ...

A pair of mathematicians has solved the first chunk of one of the most famous conjectures about the additive properties of whole numbers. Proposed more than 60 years ago by the legendary Hungarian ...

We present a numerical method for finding extreme examples of identities related to the uniform abc-conjecture for algebraic number fields. Journal Information This journal, begun in 1943 as ...

Is it possible to deduce the shape of a drum from the sounds it makes? This is the kind of question that Iosif Polterovich, a professor in the Department of Mathematics and Statistics at Université de ...

It is well-known that our intuition is not perfect. We are predictably irrational in a huge number of ways in our everyday lives. But what about something a bit more sophisticated? Are there times ...

A Rochester Institute of Technology doctoral student was part of a team of researchers that settled a 90-year-old math problem called Keller’s conjecture. David Narváez, who studies computing and ...

The 2014 MacArthur "Genius" Fellows class has been announced, and among the 21 thinkers is mathematician Yitang Zhang. In spring 2013, Zhang made an amazing breakthrough in a classic problem that has ...