After an eight-year struggle, embattled Japanese mathematician Shinichi Mochizuki has finally received some validation. His 600-page proof of the abc conjecture, one of the biggest open problems in ...

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 ...

New computer tools have the potential to revolutionize the practice of mathematics by providing more-reliable proofs of mathematical results than have ever been possible in the history of humankind.

Turbulence is one of the least understood phenomena of the physical world. Long considered too hard to understand and predict mathematically, turbulence is the reason the Navier-Stokes equations, ...

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 ...

Last June 23 marked the 25th anniversary of the electrifying announcement by Andrew Wiles that he had proved Fermat’s Last Theorem, solving a 350-year-old problem, the most famous in mathematics. The ...

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 I tell someone I am a mathematician, one of the most curious common reactions is: “I really liked math class because everything was either right or wrong. There is no ambiguity or doubt.” I ...