The original version of this story appeared in Quanta Magazine. Hard problems are usually not a welcome sight. But cryptographers love them. That’s because certain hard math problems underpin the ...

The mathematicians who toiled on the famous enigma also devised powerful forms of end-to-end encryption. By William J. Broad Defenses against digital snoopers keep getting stronger. Encryption is what ...

One influential image that is popular among scientists is the view that mathematics is the language of nature. The present article discusses another possible way to approach the relation between ...

The portly, balding sculptor-turned-architect must have drawn a few curious gazes as he set up a complicated painting apparatus in the corner of a Renaissance-era piazza. He planted his instrument, ...