A new proof about prime numbers illuminates the subtle relationship between addition and multiplication — and raises hopes for progress on the famous abc conjecture. One morning last November, the ...

Imagine that someone gives you a list of five numbers: 1, 6, 21, 107 and — wait for it — 47,176,870. Can you guess what comes next? If you’re stumped, you’re not alone. These are the first five busy ...

Mathematics is the foundation of countless sciences, allowing us to model things like planetary orbits, atomic motion, signal frequencies, protein folding, and more. Moreover, it’s a valuable testbed ...

Image made with elements from Canva. Let’s go back to grade school—do you remember learning about prime numbers? They’re numbers that can only be divided by themselves and one. So 2, 3, 5, 7, 11, and ...

For thousands of years, philosophers have pondered cardinality: knowing “how many.” Using a series of crude estimates, the ancient Greek mathematician Archimedes worked out the approximate number of ...

The countries that made up the Soviet Union, which collapsed in 1991, have produced many talented people. In particular, critic John Smith, based on the writings of mathematician Alexander Zvonkin, ...