Encryption is less secure than we thought

Information theory—the discipline that gave us digital communication and data compression—also put cryptography on a secure mathematical foundation. Since 1948, when the paper that created information theory first appeared, ...

An inmate's love for math leads to new discoveries

There are many examples of mathematical breakthroughs achieved in prison. Maybe the most famous is from the French mathematician Andre Weil, who came up with his hugely influential conjectures while in a military prison in ...

A new mathematical model predicts a knot's stability

In sailing, rock climbing, construction, and any activity requiring the securing of ropes, certain knots are known to be stronger than others. Any seasoned sailor knows, for instance, that one type of knot will secure a sheet ...

Study explains the mystery of ball lightning

(Phys.org)—Sightings of ball lightning have been made for centuries around the world – usually the size of a grapefruit and lasting up to twenty seconds – but no explanation of how it occurs has been universally accepted ...

Why Einstein will never be wrong

One of the benefits of being an astrophysicist is your weekly email from someone who claims to have "proven Einstein wrong". These either contain no mathematical equations and use phrases such as "it is obvious that..", or ...

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