Mathematics

Mathematicians Coax Fluid Equations Into Nonphysical Solutions

Quanta Magazine: For nearly two centuries, all kinds of researchers interested in how fluids flow have turned to the Navier-Stokes equations. But mathematicians still harbor basic questions about them. Foremost among them: How well do the equations adhere to reality? A…

The Puzzle That Will Outlast the World

The Atlantic: The package I’ve been impatiently waiting for finally arrives: A cardboard box about as tall as your average Olympic gymnast. It’s covered in yellow packing tape, stamped fragile, and has a return address in a town in the Netherlands….

Elegant Six-Page Proof Reveals the Emergence of Random Structure

Quanta Magazine: When the mathematicians Jeff Kahn and Gil Kalai first posed their “expectation threshold” conjecture in 2006, they didn’t believe it themselves. Their claim — a broad assertion about mathematical objects called random graphs — seemed too strong, too all-encompassing,…