Footer 1

Nav Bar

You've run out of free articles. Access unlimited ad-free stories, including this one, by subscribing now. 

Join to continue reading.

Register to continue

Thanks for reading!

Nautilus

Jake Currie is a writer based in Brooklyn, NY.

Jake Currie

Fashion timeline illustration showing dress styles from 1923-1987. Credit: Emma Zajdela / Daniel Abrams.

Math

Mathematics Suggest That Fashion Is on a 20-Year Cycle

Devin Reese is the executive editor of Natural History and a science writer based in Alexandria, Virginia.

Devin Reese

Fireflies in a woodland path. Credit: arthurgphotography / Shutterstock.

The Secret of Fireflies’ Synchronous Flashing

Glass of beer illustration. Credit: sweeticons / Shutterstock.

How Beer Brewing Revolutionized Modern Statistics

Molly Glick is the newsletter editor of Nautilus.

Molly Glick

Ancient Math Hidden in Oldest Known Floral Pottery

Adam Kucharski is a professor at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, where he works on analysis of infectious disease outbreaks, work that won him the 2023 Adams Prize for mathematics. He regularly appears in print and broadcast media and is the author of the recently published <a href="https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/adam-kucharski/proof/9781541606692/">Proof: The Art and Science of Certainty</a>. He lives in Hertfordshire, U.K.

Adam Kucharski

When Monsters Came for Mathematics

Evelyn Lamb is a freelance math and science writer based in Salt Lake City, Utah. She has written for outlets including Scientific American, Slate, and Quanta. She is the cohost of the My Favorite Theorem podcast and author of the American Mathematical Society’s math-themed page-a-day calendar.

Evelyn Lamb

The Mathematical Mysteries of Fireflies

Patchen Barss has written, edited, and produced stories about science, research, and culture for more than 20 years. His writing has appeared in Nautilus, Scientific American, the Globe and Mail, National Post, and the Toronto Star. He has been a producer at CBC Television and the Discovery Channel, and has a longstanding fascination with patterns and nature.

Patchen Barss

When Work Is Play

Ananyo Bhattacharya is chief science writer at the London Institute for Mathematical Sciences. During a 15-year career in journalism, he has worked as a senior editor at Nature and as a science correspondent for The Economist. He is the author of <a href="https://wwnorton.com/books/the-man-from-the-future">The Man from the Future</a>, an intellectual biography of mathematician John von Neumann.

Ananyo Bhattacharya

Why Physics Is Unreasonably Good at Creating New Math

<a href="https://anilananthaswamy.com/">Anil Ananthaswamy</a> is a science journalist who writes about AI and machine learning, physics, and computational neuroscience. He&#8217;s a 2019-20 MIT Knight Science Journalism fellow. His latest book is <a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/677608/why-machines-learn-by-anil-ananthaswamy/">Why Machines Learn: The Elegant Math Behind Modern AI</a>.

Anil Ananthaswamy

The Elegant Math of Machine Learning

Aubrey Clayton is an applied mathematical researcher, lecturer, and writer. He is the child of two math teachers and the author of <a href="https://cup.columbia.edu/book/bernoullis-fallacy/9780231199940">Bernoulli’s Fallacy: Statistical Illogic and the Crisis of Modern Science</a>.

Aubrey Clayton

The “Hot Hand” Is Not a Myth

Chris French is Emeritus Professor and Head of the Anomalistic Psychology Research Unit in the Psychology Department at Goldsmiths, University of London. He is a Fellow of the British Psychological Society and of the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry and also a Patron of Humanists U.K.