The original version of this story appeared in Quanta Magazine. In 1974, five years before he wrote his Pulitzer Prize–winning book Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid, Douglas Hofstadter was ...

Physicists present evidence that the universe is not a computer simulation. Credit: Amanclos / CC BY 2.0 / Flickr A team of physicists has presented new mathematical evidence that challenges the ...

This is an updated version of a story first published on May 5, 2024. For many high school students returning to class, it may seem like geometry and trigonometry were created by the Greeks as a form ...

In a digital era plagued by growing privacy concerns and eroding institutional trust, the power to prove something without disclosing sensitive data is not merely an academic exercise—it's a ...

Pseudoscience is a system of explanations, methods, and assumptions that pose as science but don’t follow core scientific principles like testability and falsifiability. Pseudoscience is different ...

Study enables deeper understanding of the Borell-Brascamp-Lieb inequality, which has wide applications across many scientific fields, from physics to economics. What happens when things combine? This ...

Mathematics usually feels universal, certain, and free from drama. Numbers don’t pick sides, theories don’t hold grudges, and proofs don’t belong to nations, at least, that’s the idea. But math ...

Unlock the full InfoQ experience by logging in! Stay updated with your favorite authors and topics, engage with content, and download exclusive resources. Vivek Yadav, an engineering manager from ...

Since the start of the 20th century, the heart of mathematics has been the proof — a rigorous, logical argument for whether a given statement is true or false. Mathematicians’ careers are measured by ...

There’s a curious contradiction at the heart of today’s most capable AI models that purport to “reason”: They can solve routine math problems with accuracy, yet when faced with formulating deeper ...