Mathematics news, features and articles (original) (raw)

A woman stands in front of a whiteboard full of mathematics equations

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Math is in everything — from the code in your smartphone to the calculations that explain the very fabric of the universe. At Live Science, we want to show you how amazing numbers can be, whether it’s recognizing the most beautiful equation or marveling in the golden ratio.

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—The 11 most beautiful mathematical equations

So if you're after seriously mind-boggling math facts, want to know why the universe would not make sense without mathematics or are curious how supercomputers enabled mathematicians to finally identify a "seemingly impossible" number, our expert writers and editors are on point with the latest news, features and articles about mathematics.

Latest about Mathematics

A close-up of a purple, white and yellow flower whose petals follow the Fibonacci sequence What is the Fibonacci sequence? ByTia Ghose last updated 6 November 24 Almost everything you know about the famous Fibonacci sequence is wrong.

Calcea Johnson and Ne'Kiya Jackson posing side by side. High school students who came up with 'impossible' proof of Pythagorean theorem discover 9 more solutions to the problem BySascha Pare published 28 October 24 In a new peer-reviewed study, Ne'Kiya Jackson and Calcea Johnson outlined 10 ways to solve the Pythagorean theorem using trigonometry, including a proof they discovered in high school.

List of prime numbers below 100 on paper in vintage type writer machine from 1920s closeup with paper. What is the largest known prime number? ByCharles Q. Choi last updated 23 October 24 There are infinitely many prime numbers, but the biggest one we know of goes by the name M82589933 and contains more than 24 million digits.

An infinity symbol glows against a dark background. The 9 most massive numbers in existence ByTia Ghose last updated 23 October 24 From the humble trillion to Graham's number, here are some of the most massive numbers ever conceived by humans.

Largest known prime number, spanning 41 million digits, discovered by amateur mathematician using free software ByBen Turner published 22 October 24 A draw housing six Sapphire Technology AMD graphics processing units (GPUs).

A photograph of an arched stone bridge with a plaque This 180-year-old graffiti scribble was actually an equation that changed the history of mathematics ByRobyn Arianrhod published 19 October 24 A photograph of the arched stone bridge that William Rowan Hamilton scratched his equation into.

Robot fortune teller hand and crystal ball 'Can you predict the future? Yes, of course you can.': Inside the 1 equation that can predict the weather, sporting events, and more ByTom Chivers published 12 October 24 "Life isn’t chess, a game of perfect information, one that can in theory be 'solved.' It's poker, a game where you're trying to make the best decisions using the limited information you have. "

$An image of the researchers' fractal maze.$ World's most difficult maze could help reveal the secrets of otherworldly quasicrystals ByBen Turner published 9 July 24 Scientists created a maze-like fractal inspired by the movements of chess pieces. The ultra-difficult maze could help to improve our understanding of bizarre quasicrystals.

'The beauty of symbolic equations is that it's much easier to … see a problem at a glance': How we moved from words and pictures to thinking symbolically ByRobyn Arianrhod published 30 June 24 "Even the +, −, =, and \00d7 signs we take for granted only came into widespread use in the 17th century. Which means that the earlier algebraists we know of … all had expressed their equations mostly in words or pictorial word images"

Avi Wigderson is the winner of the 2023 Turning Award for his studies in randomness. Avi Wigderson wins $1 million Turing Award for using randomness to change computer science ByBen Turner published 10 April 24 The 2023 Turing Award has been given to Avi Wigderson . The mathematician found that adding randomness into algorithms made them better at solving nondeterministic problems.

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