For all of the recent strides we’ve made in the math world, we’re forever crunching calculations in pursuit of deeper ...

Let’s start here: math’s most famous problem is no closer to being solved than it was a week ago. Neither humans nor artificial intelligence have made progress on the Riemann hypothesis. But AI did ...

There are plenty of dogs out there who know countless tricks. Some can let their humans know when they need to go potty, while others can nail the perfect sit or shake on command. But every so often, ...

Do you understand quantum parallel repetition? What about quantum complexity, lattice cryptography, or extremal combinatorics? The new OpenAI model Astra knows all about them. Recently, OpenAI ...

On May 20, 2026, OpenAI made an announcement that shook the mathematical world. An internal AI model — one not available to the public — had come up with a counterexample to the “unit distance” ...

The Jacobian conjecture is a long-standing open problem in algebraic geometry that's bedeviled highly accomplished mathematicians for almost 90 years. It was included in "Smale's problems," a list of ...

Researchers showed each giraffe the contents of several containers, which held varying numbers of carrots, then added extra pieces to one of them. Afterward, the animal would choose a container to get ...

Katie has a PhD in maths, specializing in the intersection of dynamical systems and number theory. She reports on topics from maths and history to society and animals. Katie has a PhD in maths, ...

Physicists have debated which way a submerged sprinkler sucking in water would spin. Careful experiments provide an answer. By Kenneth Chang Scientists say they have solved in detail what may be the ...

Only Slate Plus members can gift Slate stories. Become a member to share 10 free articles a month. Sign up for the Slatest to get the most insightful analysis, criticism, and advice out there, ...

Think about placing dots on a flat surface. You want as many pairs as possible to be separated by the same distance. For any amount of dots, what is the greatest possible number of pairs that can be ...