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A Dream of Discovering Alien Life Finds New Hope

November 3, 2022

For Lisa Kaltenegger and her generation of exoplanet astronomers, decades of planning have set the stage for an epochal detection.

Physics Duo Finds Magic in Two Dimensions

August 16, 2022

In exploring a family of two-dimensional crystals, a husband-and-wife team is uncovering a potent variety of new electron behaviors.

The Scientist Who Developed a New Way to Understand Communication

July 5, 2022

Mark Braverman has spent his career translating thorny problems into the language of information complexity.

A Solver of the Hardest Easy Problems About Prime Numbers

July 5, 2022

On his way to winning a Fields Medal, James Maynard has cut a path through simple-sounding questions about prime numbers that have stumped mathematicians for centuries.

For His Sporting Approach to Math, a Fields Medal

July 5, 2022

With Hugo Duminil-Copin, thinking rarely happens without moving. His insights into the flow-related properties of complex networks have earned him the Fields Medal.

He Dropped Out to Become a Poet. Now He’s Won a Fields Medal.

July 5, 2022

June Huh wasn’t interested in mathematics until a chance encounter during his sixth year of college. Now his profound insights connecting combinatorics and geometry have led to math’s highest honor.

In Times of Scarcity, War and Peace, a Ukrainian Finds the Magic in Math

July 5, 2022

With her homeland mired in war, the sphere-packing number theorist Maryna Viazovska has become the second woman to win a Fields Medal in the award’s 86-year history.

A Mathematician’s Unanticipated Journey Through the Physical World

December 16, 2020

Lauren Williams has charted an adventurous mathematical career out of the pieces of a fundamental object called the positive Grassmannian.

A Number Theorist Who Solves the Hardest Easy Problems

July 1, 2020

In his rapid ascent to the top of his field, James Maynard has cut a path through simple-sounding questions about prime numbers that have stumped mathematicians for centuries.

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