M. Ram Murtyobtained his PhD in 1980 from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) specializing in number theory. After post-doctoral fellowships at the Institute for Advanced Study in ...

The original version of this story appeared in Quanta Magazine. In 1994, an earthquake of a proof shook up the mathematical world. The mathematician Andrew Wiles had finally settled Fermat’s Last ...

Number Theory is one of the oldest branches of modern mathematics. It is motivated by the study of properties of integers and solutions to equations in integers. Many of its problems can be stated ...

Every so often, the Pentagon's blue sky research arm gets slammed, for funding investigations that are a little too down-to-Earth. Then Darpa turns around, and sponsors a new project to "develop a ...

Their ambitions were always high. When Will Sawin and Melanie Matchett Wood first started working together in the summer of 2020, they set out to rethink the key components of some of the most ...

Artificial intelligence has once again pushed the boundaries of what is possible. On November 14, 2025, an AI system, aptly ...

A new magnum opus posits the existence of a hidden mathematical link akin to the connection between electricity and magnetism. In 2018, as he prepared to be awarded the Fields Medal, math’s highest ...

The Fields Medal, the world’s highest honor for mathematical research, has gone to two mathematicians who forged new links between different branches of mathematics. The recipients–announced this week ...

Number theorist Peter Scholze, who became Germany’s youngest ever full professor aged 24, and geometrician Caucher Birkar—a Kurdish refugee—are among the winners of this year’s Fields Medals, the most ...

After the star-studded mystery thriller The Number 23 debuted in cinemas in 2007, many people became convinced that they were seeing the eponymous number everywhere. I was in school at that time, and ...