Every mathematician has a story that goes something like this. You’re at a party, and someone asks what you do for a living. “I’m a mathematician,” you say. “You must be a genius!” they reply. Or ...

The original version of this story appeared in Quanta Magazine. Hard problems are usually not a welcome sight. But cryptographers love them. That’s because certain hard math problems underpin the ...

As a mathematics education researcher, I study how math instruction impacts students' learning, from following standard math procedures to understanding mathematical concepts. Focusing on the latter, ...

In the early 2000s, a young graduate student at Harvard University began to chart an exotic mathematical universe — one inhabited by shapes that defy geometric intuition. Her name was Maryam ...

Hard problems are usually not a welcome sight. But cryptographers love them. That’s because certain hard math problems underpin the security of modern encryption. Any clever trick for solving them ...