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The stunningly simple rule that will always get you out of a maze

12 July 2023

You thought the maze looked fun, but now you can’t find your way out. Luckily, mathematics is here to help you escape, says Katie Steckles

Decade-long struggle over maths proof could be decided by $1m prize

11 July 2023

Mathematician Shinichi Mochizuki's Inter-universal Teichmüller theory has attracted controversy since it was published in 2012, with no one able to agree whether it is true. Now, a $1 million prize is being launched to settle the matter

woman put products on the line near cashbox. grocery shopping concept

How maths can help you pack your shopping more efficiently

7 June 2023

How can you ensure you use the fewest bags when loading your shopping? A dash of maths will help, says Peter Rowlett

A larger version of the banner image above, crossfading between Tile(1,1) and a Spectre with curved edges.

Mathematicians make even better never-repeating tile discovery

30 May 2023

An unsatisfying caveat in a mathematical breakthrough discovery of a single tile shape that can cover a surface without ever creating a repeating pattern has been eradicated. The newly discovered "spectre" shape can cover a surface without repeating...

Physicist David Wolpert on how to study concepts beyond imagination

11 April 2023

There is probably a plane of knowledge beyond the grasp of human minds. But mathematician and physicist David Wolpert says it is still possible to explore this unimaginable realm

2B034C5 In addition to Herman Melville's own experience on the whaling ship Acushnet, two real events served as the genesis for his Moby Dick. One was the sinking of the Nantucket ship Essex in 1820, after a sperm whale rammed her 2,000 miles (3,200 km) from the western coast of South America. The other event was the alleged killing in the late 1830s of the albino sperm whale Mocha Dick, in the waters off the Chilean island of Mocha. Mocha Dick was rumored to have 20 or so harpoons in his back from other whalers, and appeared to attack ships with premeditated ferocity.

Once Upon a Prime review: The connections between maths and fiction

29 March 2023

Sarah Hart's engaging book about how central maths is to literature by authors from George Eliot to Georges Perec is a homage to both subjects

Breakthrough in fiendishly hard puzzle has mathematicians partying

21 March 2023

Calculating Ramsey numbers is so difficult that one mathematician once said he'd rather fight off an alien invasion. Now, mathematicians have made the first major advance in nearly a century

Mathematicians discover shape that can tile a wall and never repeat

21 March 2023

Aperiodic tiling, in which shapes can fit together to create infinite patterns that never repeat, has fascinated mathematicians for decades, but until now no one knew if it could be done with just one shape

Quantum computers may finally have their first real practical use

18 March 2023

Methods to generate the random numbers we need for secure communications are all flawed in some way, but quantum computers that exist today could produce random numbers that can't be faked

Mathematical trick lets hackers shame people into fixing software bugs

17 January 2023

Security researchers who find a flaw in software normally privately inform the developers of it in the hope of prompting a fix, but now a mathematical trick can let them apply public pressure without releasing dangerous details of the bug