New this week
Big Think
Does the infinite exist?
Big Think
3 min read · Jun 9th · Infinity remains more of an idea than something that exists in physical reality. Even if it exists, we lack the means to find it.
Reader View · Shared by 65, including Brian Ahier
Quanta Magazine
Wheel Made of ‘Odd Matter’ Spontaneously Rolls Uphill
Quanta Magazine
9 min read · Jun 15th · Physicists have solved a key problem of robotic locomotion by revising the usual rules of interaction between simple component parts.
Shared by 63, including Nico Müller 🇺🇦, Howard Getson
Quanta Magazine
Graduate Student’s Side Project Proves Prime Number Conjecture
Quanta Magazine
4 min read · Jun 6th · Jared Duker Lichtman, 26, has proved a longstanding conjecture relating prime numbers to a broad class of “primitive” sets. To his adviser, it came as a “complete shock.”
Shared by 82, including Jennifer Ouellette
Quanta Magazine
The Computer Scientist Who Parlays Failures Into Breakthroughs
Quanta Magazine
8 min read · Jun 13th · Daniel Spielman solves important problems by thinking hard — about other questions.
Shared by 236, including Brian Laung Aoaeh, CFA, Nico Müller 🇺🇦, Ines Bieler, Pascal Sulser
Recently popular
Quanta Magazine
The Secret Math Behind Mind-Reading Magic Tricks
Quanta Magazine
~12 min read · May 27th · Four puzzle solutions reveal different ways to divine someone’s hidden number with impossibly little information.
Shared by 380, including Howard Getson
Farnam Street
Predicting the Future with Bayes’ Theorem
Farnam Street
5 min read · May 30th · Baye’s theorem is a useful tool that helps us make more accurate predictions about the likelihood of potential outcomes.
Reader View · Shared by 315, including Scott Monty, Jason Lauritsen
Quanta Magazine
The Computer Scientist Who Parlays Failures Into Breakthroughs
Quanta Magazine
8 min read · Jun 13th · Daniel Spielman solves important problems by thinking hard — about other questions.
Shared by 236, including Brian Laung Aoaeh, CFA, Nico Müller 🇺🇦, Ines Bieler, Pascal Sulser
Quanta Magazine
What Is the Langlands Program?
Quanta Magazine
Jun 1st · The Langlands program provides a beautifully intricate set of connections between various areas of mathematics, pointing the way toward novel solutions for old problems.
Quanta Magazine
Researchers Achieve ‘Absurdly Fast’ Algorithm for Network Flow
Quanta Magazine
4 min read · Jun 8th · Computer scientists can now solve a decades-old problem in practically the time it takes to write it down.
Shared by 178, including Brian Laung Aoaeh, CFA, Christopher D. Long (Крістофер Д. Лонг), Jacob du Toit, Ines Bieler
Quanta Magazine
How Math Can Improve Your Wordle Score
Quanta Magazine
4 min read · May 25th · A bit of information theory can help you analyze — and improve — your Wordle game.
Quanta Magazine
How Computer Scientists Learned to Reinvent the Proof
Quanta Magazine
5 min read · May 23rd · Why verify every line of a proof, when just a few checks will do?
Shared by 107, including Matteo Furia
Quanta Magazine
Graduate Student’s Side Project Proves Prime Number Conjecture
Quanta Magazine
4 min read · Jun 6th · Jared Duker Lichtman, 26, has proved a longstanding conjecture relating prime numbers to a broad class of “primitive” sets. To his adviser, it came as a “complete shock.”
Shared by 82, including Jennifer Ouellette
Big Think
Does the infinite exist?
Big Think
3 min read · Jun 9th · Infinity remains more of an idea than something that exists in physical reality. Even if it exists, we lack the means to find it.
Reader View · Shared by 65, including Brian Ahier
Quanta Magazine
Impossible-Seeming Surfaces Confirmed Decades After Conjecture
Quanta Magazine
9 min read · Jun 2nd · Using ideas borrowed from graph theory, two mathematicians have shown that extremely complex surfaces are easy to traverse.
All-time favorites
Quanta Magazine
In Mathematics, It Often Takes a Good Map to Find Answers
Quanta Magazine
5 min read · From 2020 · Mathematicians try to figure out when problems can be solved using current knowledge — and when they have to chart a new path instead.
Shared by 1113, including Evan (he/him), Luminous Kaleidoscope, Mario Clemente, Mike Tamir, PhD, Christian Surchi, Anne-Laure Le Cunff
ciechanow.ski
Mechanical Watch – Bartosz Ciechanowski
ciechanow.ski
20+ min read · May 4th · Interactive article explaining how a mechanical watch works.
Reader View · Shared by 1109, including Tactical Tech, Krzysztof Zabłocki, Ben Thompson, Chris Heilmann, Leo Polovets, David Papandrew, Max Roser, Nico Luchsinger, Pascal Sulser, Colin Wright, Nils Hitze, Oliver Reichenstein, Craig Mod, tanh(mmalex) 🇺🇦, Carlos Scheidegger, Tim Holman, Michael Bench-Capon, Romain Guy, Esther Schindler
Quanta Magazine
Computing Expert Says Programmers Need More Math
Quanta Magazine
9 min read · May 17th · Leslie Lamport revolutionized how computers talk to each other. Now he’s working on how engineers talk to their machines.
Shared by 742, including Evan Kirstel the $B2B Techfluencer, Marcos, Ben Lorica 罗瑞卡, Ines Bieler, Steven Sinofsky, Christopher D. Long (Крістофер Д. Лонг), Nico Müller 🇺🇦
Quanta Magazine
The Map of Mathematics
Quanta Magazine
From 2020 · Explore our surprisingly simple, absurdly ambitious and necessarily incomplete guide to the boundless mathematical universe.
Shared by 669, including Brian Laung Aoaeh, CFA, Liv 😷, Fabricio Teixeira, Katja Evertz, Logical Analysis, luis antónio santos, Nico Müller 🇺🇦, Oleg Baskov, Philipp Laurim, Ziad Shihab, Merkstatt, Kat, Cameron Yick, Matthias Lampe, Guy Longworth, Jennifer Ouellette, Mark Brandon, Dr. Ganapathi Pulipaka 🇺🇸, Kim Albrecht, William El Kaim
neilwithdata.com
Mathematics for the adventurous self-learner
neilwithdata.com
~20 min read · From 2020 · For over six years now, I've been studying mathematics on my own in my spare time - working my way through books, exercises, and online courses. In this post I'll share what books and resources I've…
Reader View · Shared by 558, including ΛLΞX TRΞJʘ, Kenneth Kalmer, Liv 😷, Kevin Roberts, Mattia Fregola 🤔, ash, Jonathan Kogan, sircharlsxavier, Desmond Williams, Matthias Lampe, rohit
Farnam Street
Math Makes Life Beautiful.
Farnam Street
5 min read · May 10th · Math has long been the language of science, engineering, and finance, but can math help you feel calm on a turbulent flight? Get a date? Make better decisions? Here are some heroic ways math shows up…
Reader View · Shared by 533, including Massimiliano Aroffo, Jason Lauritsen, Mike Taylor, Scott Monty, Marcos
Quanta Magazine
Computer Scientists Prove Certain Problems Are Truly Hard
Quanta Magazine
7 min read · May 11th · Finding out whether a question is too difficult to ever solve efficiently depends on figuring out just how hard it is. Researchers have now shown how to do that for a major class of problems.
Quanta Magazine
The Journey to Define Dimension
Quanta Magazine
8 min read · 2021-09-14 · The concept of dimension seems simple enough, but mathematicians struggled for centuries to precisely define and understand it.
Shared by 394, including Nicolas Babin, AI, maxadorno, Jason Silva, Jennifer Ouellette, Ines Bieler, Azeem Azhar, Nico Müller 🇺🇦, Dr. Simon A. Rego
Quanta Magazine
The Secret Math Behind Mind-Reading Magic Tricks
Quanta Magazine
~12 min read · May 27th · Four puzzle solutions reveal different ways to divine someone’s hidden number with impossibly little information.
Shared by 380, including Howard Getson