Math

With the NBA Finals upon us, a mathematician revisits the famous paper that claims a player's hot streak is an illusion.

There are no such things as coincidences.

Why scientists can’t quit chalk, even in the digital age.

Three computer scientists disprove a long-standing idea about imperfect information.

Some of the power of math lies in the very fact that it’s made up.

Mathematical proofs based on a technique called diagonalization can be relentlessly contrarian, but they help reveal the limits of algorithms.

New results break with decades of conventional wisdom for the gradient descent algorithm.

For a half century, mathematicians have tried to define the exact circumstances under which a black hole is destined to exist.

Mathematicians can often figure out what happens as quantities grow infinitely large. What about when they are just a little big?

Solving nature’s greatest Gordian knot.

Math provokes dread in so many people—yet we are all born with a sense for numbers.

Two mathematicians have proven Patterson’s conjecture, which was designed to explain a strange pattern in sums involving prime numbers.