polynomials – Quanta Magazine https://www.quantamagazine.org Illuminating science Mon, 16 Sep 2024 14:10:47 -0400 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.2 A Rosetta Stone for Mathematics https://www.quantamagazine.org/a-rosetta-stone-for-mathematics-20240506/ https://www.quantamagazine.org/a-rosetta-stone-for-mathematics-20240506/#respond Mon, 06 May 2024 14:23:30 +0000 https://www.quantamagazine.org/?p=137720 The post A Rosetta Stone for Mathematics first appeared on Quanta Magazine

]]> In 1940, from a jailhouse in Rouen, France, André Weil wrote one of the most consequential letters of 20th-century mathematics. He was serving time for refusing to join the French army, and he filled his days in part by writing letters to his sister, Simone, an accomplished philosopher living in London. In a previous letter, Simone had asked André to tell her about his work. With war all around...

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]]> https://www.quantamagazine.org/a-rosetta-stone-for-mathematics-20240506/feed/ 0 ‘Magical’ Error Correction Scheme Proved Inherently Inefficient https://www.quantamagazine.org/magical-error-correction-scheme-proved-inherently-inefficient-20240109/ https://www.quantamagazine.org/magical-error-correction-scheme-proved-inherently-inefficient-20240109/#respond Tue, 09 Jan 2024 16:00:14 +0000 https://www.quantamagazine.org/?p=133915 The post ‘Magical’ Error Correction Scheme Proved Inherently Inefficient first appeared on Quanta Magazine

]]> If you’ve ever sent a text message, played a CD, or stored a file in the cloud, you’ve benefited from error correction. This revolutionary idea dates back to the 1940s, when researchers first realized that it’s possible to rewrite any message in a form that allows later corruption to be easily reversed. Over the years, researchers have developed many ingenious schemes...

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]]> https://www.quantamagazine.org/magical-error-correction-scheme-proved-inherently-inefficient-20240109/feed/ 0 He Dropped Out to Become a Poet. Now He’s Won a Fields Medal. https://www.quantamagazine.org/june-huh-high-school-dropout-wins-the-fields-medal-20220705/ https://www.quantamagazine.org/june-huh-high-school-dropout-wins-the-fields-medal-20220705/#respond Tue, 05 Jul 2022 07:19:44 +0000 https://www.quantamagazine.org/?p=116439 The post He Dropped Out to Become a Poet. Now He’s Won a Fields Medal. first appeared on Quanta Magazine

]]> June Huh often finds himself lost. Every afternoon, he takes a long walk around Princeton University, where he’s a professor in the mathematics department. On this particular day in mid-May, he’s making his way through the woods around the nearby Institute for Advanced Study — “Just so you know,” he says as he considers a fork in the path ahead, “I don’t know where we are” — pausing every so often...

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]]> https://www.quantamagazine.org/june-huh-high-school-dropout-wins-the-fields-medal-20220705/feed/ 0 The Sordid Past of the Cubic Formula https://www.quantamagazine.org/the-scandalous-history-of-the-cubic-formula-20220630/ https://www.quantamagazine.org/the-scandalous-history-of-the-cubic-formula-20220630/#respond Thu, 30 Jun 2022 14:54:04 +0000 https://www.quantamagazine.org/?p=116369 The post The Sordid Past of the Cubic Formula first appeared on Quanta Magazine

]]> History is full of backstabbing rivalries: Edison and Tesla, Harding and Kerrigan, Tupac and Biggie. No less dramatic was a 16th-century conflict between Italian mathematicians Gerolamo Cardano, a brilliant but troubled polymath, and Niccolò Fontana, better known as Tartaglia (meaning “the stammerer,” after a teenage facial injury from a French soldier’s sword). The central issue: cubic equations.

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]]> https://www.quantamagazine.org/the-scandalous-history-of-the-cubic-formula-20220630/feed/ 0 New Proof Illuminates the Hidden Structure of Common Equations https://www.quantamagazine.org/new-proof-reveals-the-hidden-structure-of-common-equations-20220421/ https://www.quantamagazine.org/new-proof-reveals-the-hidden-structure-of-common-equations-20220421/#respond Thu, 21 Apr 2022 14:30:37 +0000 https://www.quantamagazine.org/?p=114317 The post New Proof Illuminates the Hidden Structure of Common Equations first appeared on Quanta Magazine

]]> In a recent paper, Manjul Bhargava of Princeton University has settled an 85-year-old conjecture about one of math’s most ancient obsessions: the solutions to polynomial equations such as x2 – 3x + 2 = 0. “It’s a great problem, famous old question,” said Andrew Granville, a professor at the University of Montreal. “ had an interesting, somewhat different approach, which was very creative.

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