Share this on WhatsApp As the COVID-19 pandemic rages around the world, shattering our familiar realms of work, education and play, many of us in lockdown face a binary choice: We can hunker down at home, or—when we can’t stand it anymore—take a walk outside. After the crisis began, I witnessed a tenfold surge in […]
Share this on WhatsApp After an eight-year struggle, embattled Japanese mathematician Shinichi Mochizuki has finally received some validation. His 600-page proof of the abc conjecture, one of the biggest open problems in number theory, has been accepted for publication. Acceptance of the work in Publications of the Research Institute for Mathematical Sciences (RIMS)—a journal of which Mochizuki […]
Share this on WhatsApp With a five-meter-wide, 57-meter-tall rocket waiting to blast off from China’s southern island of Hainan, the nation is quietly making final preparations for its first independent trip to Mars. When the launch window opens in mid-July, Chinese scientists will strive to send a probe to a planet that confused their ancestors […]
