The Best Articles in Math
The most useful articles and videos in Math from around the web, curated by thought leaders and our community.
Refind focuses on timeless pieces and updates the list whenever new, must-read articles or videos are discovered.
Top 5 Math Articles
At a glance: these are the articles that have been most read, shared, and saved in Math by Refind users in 2024 so far.
Videos
Watch a video to get a quick overview.
A world from a sheet of paper
Starting from just a sheet of paper, by folding, stacking, crumpling, sometimes tearing, Tadashi will explore a diversity of phenomena, from magic tricks and...
Space filling curves filling with water
Get an exclusive Surfshark deal: enter promo code STEVEMOULD for an extra 3 months free at https://surfshark.deals/stevemould*literallySpace filling curves a...
4,844 People Agree With Me, 574 Disagree
For decades, the Sleeping Beauty Problem has divided people between two answers. Head to https://brilliant.org/veritasium to start your free 30-day trial, an...
The Prime Number Race (with 3Blue1Brown)
Grant Sanderson discusses a race between two types of prime numbers - and an unexpected result.More links & stuff in full description below ↓↓↓See all three ...
What is ...?
New to Math? These articles make an excellent introduction.
What Is a Particle?
It has been thought of as many things: a pointlike object, an excitation of a field, a speck of pure math that has cut into reality. But never has physicists’ conception of a particle changed more…
What is a square?
If a shape has equal sides with 90 degree angles between them then it's a square, right? Well, not quite...
What is it to be Bayesian? The (pretty simple) math modelling behind a Big Data buzzword
If you’ve ever tripped up over the term ‘Bayesian’ while reading up on data or tech, fear not. Strip away the jargon and notation, and even the mathematics-averse can make sense of the simple yet…
How to ...?
How to break a theory
When a theory breaks, you learn how to build it better.
«ASK WEIRD QUESTIONS Einstein had a wild imagination. He asked himself questions like: What would he feel if he rode an elevator through outer space? What would he see if he chased a beam of light?»
How to Win at Wordle (Without Cheating)
Solve these puzzle questions to level up your Wordle game.
Trending
These links are currently making the rounds in Math on Refind.
A Mathematician On Creativity, Art, Logic and Language
The recipient of the 2024 Crafoord Prize in Mathematics discusses math as art, math as language, and math as abstract thought.
Abracadabra
The wizard looks at his owl, nods his head and says: “it is time”. From underneath his robe he grabs his wand and puts it at his temple. Slowly, he draws his innermost thoughts as silver slivers out…
How Not To Predict The Future—Asterisk
Good forecasting thrives on a delicate balance of math, expertise, and…vibes.
How to Build an Origami Computer
Two mathematicians have shown that origami can, in principle, be used to perform any possible computation.
Elliptic Curve ‘Murmurations’ Found With AI Take Flight
Mathematicians are working to fully explain unusual behaviors uncovered using artificial intelligence.
Short Articles
Short on time? Check out these useful short articles in Math—all under 10 minutes.
Why Randomness Doesn't Feel Random
Most of us tend to think of randomness as being “well spaced." Genuinely random distributions seem to contradict our inherent ideas of what randomness should look like.
How Gödel’s Proof Works
His incompleteness theorems destroyed the search for a mathematical theory of everything. Nearly a century later, we’re still coming to grips with the consequences.
The Astonishing Behavior of Recursive Sequences
Some strange mathematical sequences are always whole numbers — until they’re not. The puzzling patterns have revealed ties to graph theory and prime numbers, awing mathematicians.
The (Often) Overlooked Experiment That Revealed the Quantum World
A century ago, the Stern-Gerlach experiment established the truth of quantum mechanics. Now it’s being used to probe the clash of quantum theory and gravity.
A Ball of Brain Cells on a Chip Can Learn Simple Speech Recognition and Math
Just a first step, Brainoware paves the way for increasingly sophisticated hybrid biocomputers that could lower energy costs and speed up computation.
Long Articles
These are some of the most-read long-form articles in Math.
The Theorist Who Sees Math in Art, Music and Writing
The links between math, music and art have been explored for thousands of years. Sarah Hart is now turning a mathematical eye to literature.
The mathematically correct way to tie your shoes
One of the major milestones of our early childhoods comes when we learn, for the first time, how to successfully tie our own shoes. As most of us learned, there are three key steps to making that…
Why Mathematical Proof Is a Social Compact
Number theorist Andrew Granville on what mathematics really is — and why objectivity is never quite within reach.
Complexity Theory’s 50-Year Journey to the Limits of Knowledge
How hard is it to prove that problems are hard to solve? Meta-complexity theorists have been asking questions like this for decades. A string of recent results has started to deliver answers.
The Two-Century Quest to Quantify Our Senses
The quantification of bodies, senses, and experience did not begin with surveillance capitalism but can be traced back to mathematical and statistical techniques of the 19th century.
«Emerging experimental psychology laboratories wanted to create a new kind of human being: quantifiable, calculable, and predictable.»
Thought Leaders
We monitor hundreds of thought leaders, influencers, and newsletters in Math, including:
What is Refind?
Every day Refind picks the most relevant links from around the web for you. Picking only a handful of links means focusing on what’s relevant and useful.
How does Refind curate?
It’s a mix of human and algorithmic curation, following a number of steps:
- We monitor 10k+ sources and 1k+ thought leaders on hundreds of topics—publications, blogs, news sites, newsletters, Substack, Medium, Twitter, etc.
- In addition, our users save links from around the web using our Save buttons and our extensions.
- Our algorithm processes 100k+ new links every day and uses external signals to find the most relevant ones, focusing on timeless pieces.
- Our community of active users gets the most relevant links every day, tailored to their interests. They provide feedback via implicit and explicit signals: open, read, listen, share, mark as read, read later, «More/less like this», etc.
- Our algorithm uses these internal signals to refine the selection.
- In addition, we have expert curators who manually curate niche topics.
The result: lists of the best and most useful articles on hundreds of topics.
How does Refind detect «timeless» pieces?
We focus on pieces with long shelf-lives—not news. We determine «timelessness» via a number of metrics, for example, the consumption pattern of links over time.
How many sources does Refind monitor?
We monitor 10k+ content sources on hundreds of topics—publications, blogs, news sites, newsletters, Substack, Medium, Twitter, etc.
Who are the thought leaders in Math?
We follow dozens of thought leaders in Math, including nature, Quanta Magazine, XKCD Comic, Popular Mechanics, Stephen Wolfram.
Missing a thought leader? Submit them here
Can I submit a link?
Indirectly, by using Refind and saving links from outside (e.g., via our extensions).
How can I report a problem?
When you’re logged-in, you can flag any link via the «More» (...) menu. You can also report problems via email to hello@refind.com
Who uses Refind?
450k+ smart people start their day with Refind. To learn something new. To get inspired. To move forward. Our apps have a 4.9/5 rating.
Is Refind free?
Yes, it’s free!
How can I sign up?
Head over to our homepage and sign up by email or with your Twitter or Google account.
Keep Learning
Get the big picture on your favorite topics.