Mathematics

Artificial IntelligenceMarch 25, 2026

Is AI solving proofs—or just dividing our opinions?

A new challenge reveals how well AI can tackle true math problems

Kendra Pierre-Louis, Joseph Howlett, Fonda Mwangi, Alex Sugiura

Gold question marks and a blue number 1 against a light blur background

MathematicsMarch 24, 2026

Mathematicians can’t agree on whether 0.999... equals 1

Whether 0.999... equals 1 is the subject of bitter dispute in countless online forums

Manon Bischoff

May Issue: Your Heart in Flames. Read Now!

Colorful speech bubbles with different patterns sit as cutouts on a solid background

LanguageMarch 19, 2026

Can you solve these language puzzles? Test your skills with these problems from North America’s biggest linguistics competition

For 20 years, this computational linguistics competition has inspired new generations of innovators in AI and language preservation

Emma R. Hasson

A man sitting with hands folded on a bench outside a wooden shed.

MathematicsMarch 19, 2026

Gerd Faltings, mathematician who proved the Mordell conjecture, wins the Abel Prize at age 71

The Mordell conjecture—now known as Faltings’s theorem—concerns the number of special points on a curve

Joseph Howlett

MathematicsMarch 19, 2026

The math of March Madness brackets

When can mathematicians reverse engineer basketball tournament results from your friends’ brackets?

Emma R. Hasson

A group of young people wearing different Y2K trend clothes on a staircase outside a building.

MathMarch 18, 2026

The curious math that explains why fashion trends always come back around

Fashion’s 20-year trend cycle isn’t just based on vibes; it can be mathematically modeled

K. R. Callaway

Illustration of a ring of sky with bunnies jumping on it.

ArtsMarch 17, 2026

Poems: Math limericks

Science in meter and verse

Jeffrey Branzburg

Illustration of a hand and multiple numbers against a purple background.

MathematicsMarch 17, 2026

Math puzzle: Tricky calculation

Use some creative arithmetic on this math puzzle

Emma R. Hasson

Isotype-inspired figures: one of a farmer and one of a librarian (to be assembled into a lineup of 11 of the farmer icons repeated, and one librarian.)

StatisticsMarch 17, 2026

The paradoxical math of false alarms

Here’s how a mathematical paradox distorts our view of news, safety and statistics

Jack Murtagh

A library shelf packed with books, with a rectangular hole cut out of the center, revealing infinitely more shelfs behind.

MathematicsMarch 16, 2026

As AI keeps improving, mathematicians struggle to foretell their own future

First Proof is an effort to see whether LLMs can contribute meaningfully to pure mathematics research. The dust has settled on round one, and the results are surprising

Joseph Howlett

Calendar page with phrase Friday The 13th, closeup.

MathematicsMarch 13, 2026

Why Friday the 13th is a mathematical inevitability

No bad luck here—just lots of fascinating math that explains why the 13th of a month so often falls on a Friday

Manon Bischoff

A blackboard shows the digits of pi drawn out in chalk.

MathMarch 13, 2026

Mathematicians find one pi formula to rule them all

A mixture of AI and algorithms uncovered a hidden structure spanning 2,000 years of equations for pi

Lyndie Chiou

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