In a world run by computers, there is one algorithm that stands above all the rest. It powers search engines, encrypts your data, guides rockets, runs simulations, and makes the modern digital ...

All mainstream credit card numbers obey a mathematical trick designed to catch the most common typos. It’s called the Luhn algorithm, named after IBM researcher Hans Peter Luhn, who patented it in ...

You’re at the checkout screen after an online shopping spree, ready to enter your credit card number. You type it in and instantly see a red error message ...

A new report by Capgemini warns that quantum computing may break the widely used public-key cryptographic systems within the next decade — threatening everything from online banking to blockchain ...

China entered its first team into the International Mathematical Olympiad (IMO), widely regarded as the world’s most prestigious math competition for pre-university students, in 1985. Four years later ...

What did you dream of doing when you were 16 years old? I wanted to drive a car and travel the world. But American mathematician Ray Solomonoff had more ambitious goals at that age. He wanted to find ...

“The Secret Lives of Numbers,” by Kate Kitagawa and Timothy Revell, highlights overlooked contributions to the field by ancient thinkers, non-Westerners and women. By Alec Wilkinson Alec Wilkinson is ...

In 2021, an Austin-based real estate finfluencer named Monte Lee-Wen made what was likely the quickest $50 million of his career selling the “Chronos portfolio,” a group of five working-class ...

New mathematical tools revealing how quickly cell proteins break down are poised to uncover deeper insights into how we age, according to a recently published paper. New mathematical tools revealing ...