In the U.S. and across the world, the conversation around the great issues facing humanity often takes a binary approach, pitting one priority against another, as if life is a relentless series of ...

Jie Wang does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their ...

The original version of this story appeared in Quanta Magazine. All of modern mathematics is built on the foundation of set theory, the study of how to organize abstract collections of objects. But in ...

A new proof illuminates the hidden patterns that emerge when addition becomes impossible. The simplest ideas in mathematics can also be the most perplexing. Take addition. It’s a straightforward ...

Descriptive set theorists study the niche mathematics of infinity. Now, they’ve shown that their problems can be rewritten in the concrete language of algorithms. All of modern mathematics is built on ...