## Monday, July 01, 2019

### Mathematicians Discover the Perfect Way to Multiply

Four thousand years ago, the Babylonians invented multiplication. Last month, mathematicians perfected it.

On March 18, two researchers described the fastest method ever discovered for multiplying two very large numbers. The paper marks the culmination of a long-running search to find the most efficient procedure for performing one of the most basic operations in math.

“Everybody thinks basically that the method you learn in school is the best one, but in fact it’s an active area of research,” said Joris van der Hoeven, a mathematician at the French National Center for Scientific Research and one of the co-authors.

## Tuesday, June 18, 2019

### A 53-Year-Old Network Coloring Conjecture Is Disproved

A paper posted online last month has disproved a 53-year-old conjecture about the best way to assign colors to the nodes of a network. The paper shows, in a mere three pages, that there are better ways to color certain networks than many mathematicians had supposed possible.

## Wednesday, April 03, 2019

### Andrew Booker, a Mathematics Professor at the University of Bristol, Just Solved a Deceptively Simple Puzzle That Has Boggled Minds for 64 Years

A mathematician in England has cracked a math puzzle that's stumped computers and humans alike for 64 years: How can the number 33 be expressed as the sum of three cubed numbers?

While it might seem simple on its face, this question is part of an enduring number-theory conundrum that goes back to at least 1955 and may have been mulled over by Greek thinkers as early as the third century. The underlying equation to solve looks like this:

x^3 + y^3 + z^3 = k

(8,866,128,975,287,528)^3 + (–8,778,405,442,862,239)^3 + (–2,736,111,468,807,040)^3 = 33.

## Friday, March 22, 2019

Mathematician Karen Uhlenbeck has become the first woman to win the Abel prize, sometimes called the Nobel prize of mathematics. She has been awarded the 6 million Norwegian kroner ($700,000) prize for her work in the fields of gauge theory and geometric analysis, which have been credited with far-reaching impact in both mathematics and physics. Click here for more information. ## Sunday, January 13, 2019 ### Mathematician Sir Michael Atiyah dies aged 89 One of the world's foremost mathematicians, Prof Sir Michael Atiyah, has died at the age of 89. Sir Michael, who worked at Cambridge University before he retired, made outstanding contributions to geometry and topology. Sir Michael was a recipient of the highest honour in mathematics, a Fields Medal. He died on Friday. Click here for more information. ## Thursday, January 03, 2019 ### 51st Known Mersenne Prime Found! The Great Internet Mersenne Prime Search (GIMPS) has discovered the largest known prime number, 282,589,933-1, having 24,862,048 digits. A computer volunteered by Patrick Laroche from Ocala, Florida made the find on December 7, 2018. The new prime number, also known as M82589933, is calculated by multiplying together 82,589,933 twos and then subtracting one. It is more than one and a half million digits larger than the previous record prime number. Click here for more information. ## Monday, September 24, 2018 ### Riemann Hypothesis Solved By Sir Michael Atiyah After 160 Years, He Says One of the world's most renowned mathematicians showed how he solved the 160-year-old Riemann hypothesis at a lecture on Monday — and he will be awarded$1 million if his solution is confirmed.

Sir Michael Atiyah, who has won the two biggest prizes in mathematics — the Fields Medal and Abel Prize — took the stage at the Heidelberg Laureate Forum in Germany on Monday to present his work.

To solve the hypothesis you need to find a way to predict the occurrence of every prime number, even though primes have historically been regarded as randomly distributed.

Aityah's solution will need to be checked by other mathematicians and then published before it is fully accepted and he can claim the prize from the Clay Mathematics Institute of Cambridge.