https://phys.org/science-news/mathematics/ en-us The latest news on mathematics, math, math science, mathematical science and math technology. More than 20% of the workload on the world's 500 fastest supercomputers is spent simulating how atoms and molecules move—with applications ranging from material design to identifying drug interactions to understanding protein folding. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-mathematicians-unleash-multifold-boost-supercomputer.html Mathematics Wed, 24 Jun 2026 14:40:04 EDT news701522521 Many languages recycle words, giving them different meanings. For example, in English, "run" can mean to move quickly but also to manage something, like "run a company." In Spanish, "lengua" is both the word for tongue and language, as in "la lengua española." This type of word reuse is known as colexification. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-languages-recycle-words.html Mathematics Mon, 22 Jun 2026 12:40:02 EDT news701348226 Scientists working on the revolutionary 'R' programming language invented at the University of Auckland have won a top award intended to be a Nobel Prize for statisticians. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-zealand-scientists-major-global-award.html Mathematics Fri, 19 Jun 2026 08:07:27 EDT news701075106 Every day, millions of people play Wordle, the popular New York Times game that challenges users to guess a secret five-letter word. Using information theory, a team of researchers at Binghamton University, State University of New York, has developed a method to solve the game with a 99% success rate. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-math-wordle.html Mathematics Wed, 17 Jun 2026 14:40:07 EDT news700920061 Imagine you poll your friends on how many minutes per pound to roast a turkey. Five respond with 15 minutes; one answers 33 minutes. The most popular model of conformity, the French-Harary-DeGroot model (or more commonly, DeGroot model), assumes that you would carefully weigh all six recommendations, calculating a cooking time of 18 minutes per pound. But under a model of conformity previously published by SFI Complexity Postdoctoral Fellow Kaleda Denton and colleagues, you would disregard the outlier and move ahead with 15. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-redefined-conformity-averaging-real-world.html Mathematics Mon, 15 Jun 2026 15:00:09 EDT news700743781 A dribble and a jump shot, followed by a fractions task. That is what physical education classes looked like for a group of pupils, and the pupils not only found the lessons more engaging than usual—they also became better at mathematics with a basketball in their hands, according to a new study from the University of Copenhagen. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-basketball-mathematics-children-boost-math.html Mathematics Wed, 10 Jun 2026 12:40:04 EDT news700308601 How do children learn math? It's shaped by what they know as well as their motivation and engagement. Historically, research on children's math learning has been focused on parents' cognitive practices (such as math talk—informal conversations that involve math), however emerging evidence shows how parents' motivational practices (encouraging independence and helping children enjoy math) may also play a critical role in their math abilities. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-parents-kids-enjoy-math-boost.html Mathematics Wed, 10 Jun 2026 09:00:01 EDT news700217641 From June 11, countless millions of people will be following the football World Cup in Canada, Mexico and the U.S. They will discuss their team's performance, talk like experts about tactics and formations, and cower behind the sofa during penalty shootouts. But a lot of what comes across as gut instinct and long-established football wisdom can now be verified with the help of data. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-opponents-swiss-national-team.html Mathematics Tue, 09 Jun 2026 18:00:04 EDT news700215850 Are two sets of data genuinely different, or is it because of randomness? This question, known as the two-sample testing problem, becomes notoriously difficult in modern datasets, because they are often high-dimensional, complex, and differences between them can take countless subtle forms. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-hidden-geometry-kernel-methods-complex.html Mathematics Mon, 08 Jun 2026 17:50:03 EDT news700156321 Team Australia kicked it long from the goalkeeper. Switzerland took a slower approach and preferred short passes over long drives. Spain, on the other hand, tended to string the ball with sharp, sideways passes across the field. Those are a few of the takeaways from passing-style graphics that Northeastern University's Network Science Institute developed of the top soccer teams at the FIFA World Cup 2022 that showcased their most distinctive passing clusters. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-network-science-world-cup.html Mathematics Thu, 04 Jun 2026 12:40:06 EDT news699793501 A Dartmouth College study is the first to map the interplay of personal choice and social networks that has led to the United States being one of the world's most heavily armed countries, with 120 firearms for every 100 people. The researchers describe in Science Advances how individual incentives to buy firearms can lead to a phenomenon they call "overarming." In an overarmed society, the collective cost of firearm ownership outweighs the individual benefits of possessing a gun. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-overarming-america-game-theory-explores.html Mathematics Wed, 03 Jun 2026 14:00:10 EDT news699704161 Ahead of major soccer tournaments, a research team led by Achim Zeileis of the University of Innsbruck and Andreas Groll of TU Dortmund University calculates the chances of winning for all participating teams. For the 2026 World Cup in Canada, Mexico, and the United States, their model identifies Spain as the slight favorite with 14.5%. Closely behind are England (12.4%), France (12.4%), and Germany (11.2%). Somewhat further back are Portugal (8.9%) and Argentina (8.2%), as well as the Netherlands (5.6%) and Brazil (4.7%). "Compared to previous tournaments, this year's title race is very tight," confirms Achim Zeileis. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-world-cup-spain-title-wide.html Mathematics Wed, 03 Jun 2026 13:20:20 EDT news699711508 Dozens of mathematicians signed a declaration Tuesday calling for the discipline to resist beating the drum for artificial intelligence developers. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-mathematicians-dont-hype-ai-capabilities.html Mathematics Tue, 02 Jun 2026 12:40:06 EDT news699620965 One of the dilemmas facing anyone in a new and unfamiliar city is where to dine out. You might consult guides, speak to locals, check reviews, and ultimately, try your luck. But if you're there for a while, at some point you're going to be asking yourself whether to visit new eateries or stick to the ones you've already tried and liked. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-richard-feynman-formula-dining-habits.html Mathematics Tue, 02 Jun 2026 12:20:01 EDT news699620074 Most people wouldn't think that it would take rigorous mathematical proof to show how many folds it takes to make a donut shape out of paper. Yet, no one could quite figure it out until recently. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-mathematician-origami-donut-efficiency-fewest.html Mathematics Mon, 01 Jun 2026 13:03:13 EDT news699537760 How ambitious should you be? Folk wisdom offers conflicting advice: "Shoot for the moon," but also, "Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good." A new study by researchers at the University of Wyoming, Stanford University and the University of Colorado-Boulder used a mathematical model to show that ambition lies in the middle—above average but finite. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-moon-aim-bit.html Mathematics Fri, 29 May 2026 09:00:02 EDT news699176462 Last week, OpenAI shocked the mathematical community by revealing that one of its internal artificial intelligence (AI) models had found a counterexample to a famous conjecture made by legendary Hungarian mathematician Paul Erdős in 1946. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-ai-solution-80yearold-problem-mathematicians.html Mathematics Thu, 28 May 2026 12:20:02 EDT news699185941 In today's scientific and industrial fields, high-dimensional data in which numerous variables are observed simultaneously, such as genomic, climate, financial, and sensor data, are rapidly increasing. In such data, it is important to learn the dependent structures connecting the variables and to identify a "dependence map" that reveals hidden information in massive data sets. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-bayesian-inference-hidden-multi-group.html Mathematics Tue, 26 May 2026 11:00:07 EDT news699010951 In a new open-access study that I published with my late colleague Kostya Trachenko from Queen Mary University of London, I propose a surprisingly simple nonlinear mathematical equation that unifies 12,000 years of human population growth and points to stark possible futures if global environmental crises intensify. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-mathematical-global-population.html Mathematics Mon, 25 May 2026 10:00:02 EDT news698921136 Three mathematicians have laid out proof that solves a long-standing problem in mathematics. Even the mathematician—an Abel prize winner—that first posed the problem didn't believe it would ever be solved. The solution provides insight into high-dimensional random structures that could potentially impact data science, machine learning and optimization. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-mathematicians-decades-mystery-hidden-high.html Mathematics Sun, 24 May 2026 12:20:01 EDT news698499556 For nearly 80 years, mathematicians have struggled to solve a classic geometry puzzle first posed by Paul Erdős in 1946: the planar unit distance problem. The question posed by the legendary Hungarian mathematician was, on the surface, deceptively simple. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-ai-major-breakthrough-math-problem.html Mathematics Fri, 22 May 2026 13:50:50 EDT news698676636 A new study shows that apparently erratic or "sloppy" behavior in strategic situations is not necessarily a mistake. Under certain conditions, being less sensitive to one's own gains can become a long-term advantage. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-noisy-decision-strategic-advantage.html Mathematics Thu, 21 May 2026 13:20:04 EDT news698581921 The "prisoner's dilemma" is one of the most famous ideas in game theory. For decades, this game has been used to explain why selfishness often beats cooperation. In the prisoner's dilemma, two players can either cooperate or cheat. Cheating always seems to pay off more, so both players end up cheating and losing out even though working together would have given them the biggest reward. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-physicist-fresh-prisoner-dilemma-reveals.html Mathematics Mon, 18 May 2026 18:00:02 EDT news698339221 A computerized matching system can be designed to be fair and still produce unequal outcomes if the people using it do not understand how it works, according to new research published in Organization Science that shows that disparities can emerge even when a matching system is designed to reduce bias, discourage gaming and reward honest decision-making. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-fair-unequal-outcomes.html Mathematics Fri, 15 May 2026 14:00:07 EDT news698069461 A mathematical method borrowed from topology can reveal structural properties of visual art that correspond to how people perceive and respond to them, according to a new study published in PLOS Computational Biology by Jacek Rogala of the University of Warsaw, Poland, Shabnam Kadir of the University of Hertfordshire, UK, and colleagues. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-mathematical-analysis-reveals-hidden-golden.html Mathematics Thu, 14 May 2026 14:00:01 EDT news697884781 Kaleidocycles are flexible polyhedral structures composed of rigid tetrahedra connected along their edges to form rotating rings. Each tetrahedron is a solid 3D polygon with four triangular faces (like a triangular pyramid), and the hinges connect neighboring units, enabling a smooth rotational motion of the ring without deforming the individual pieces. These mechanisms are often compared with the bubble rings blown by dolphins. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-mathematicians-kaleidocycles-exact-motion.html Mathematics Thu, 14 May 2026 12:36:18 EDT news697980961 Our personal identity is composed of many dimensions, such as age, gender, ethnic background, or socioeconomic status. A research team led by Fariba Karimi from the Institute of Human-Centered Computing at Graz University of Technology (TU Graz) and Samuel Martin-Gutierrez from the Complexity Science Hub developed the statistical computational model "MAPS" to calculate the influence of these factors on our social relationships. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-identity-traits-sharply-narrow-friends.html Mathematics Wed, 13 May 2026 11:00:24 EDT news697888801 On April 29, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down Louisiana's voting map on the basis that the state had illegally used race as a consideration when it created a new majority-Black district. Observers say the ruling could have major implications across the country for how future district boundary decisions are made under the Voting Rights Act. Meanwhile, ahead of the November midterms, lawmakers in several states have been redrawing their district maps to favor one party or the other, or are considering such reconfigurations. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-qa-political-calculus-actual-math.html Mathematics Thu, 07 May 2026 16:40:01 EDT news697389301 The University of Hong Kong (HKU) has spearheaded an international research collaboration to develop a pioneering theoretical framework that deciphers the predictability of complex networks. A research team including Professor Qingpeng Zhang's group at the HKU Musketeers Foundation Institute of Data Science (HKU IDS) and the HKU Li Ka Shing Faculty of Medicine, together with researchers from Zhejiang University and Sapienza University of Rome, has developed a new theoretical framework to understand the predictability of complex networks. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-theoretical-framework-complex-networks.html Mathematics Thu, 07 May 2026 16:00:04 EDT news697387982 Newly published research from a leading computer scientist warns that the use of generative AI to design, train, or perform steps within a machine learning system could increase serious risks. Michael Lones, professor at Heriot-Watt University's School of Mathematical and Computer Sciences, has argued in a new paper that generative AI could expose organizations and the public to unintended harm. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-generative-ai-cyber.html Mathematics Sun, 03 May 2026 14:30:03 EDT news696579687