Mathematicians have figured out how to assign each knot a hexagonal "QR code" that is as symmetric and delicately detailed as a snowflake -- my latest for @quantamagazine.bsky.social #MathSky www.quantamagazine.org/a-powerful-n...

Mathematicians have built beautiful, snowflake-like codes to untangle some of the trickiest knots. @ericaklarreich.bsky.social reports: www.quantamagazine.org/a-powerful-n...

Excited to learn that my Quanta article about the Noperthedron will appear in The Best American Science and Nature Writing! Many thanks to guest editor @xkcd.com + @jaimealyse.bsky.social, Mariner Books, @jordanacep.bsky.social and @quantamagazine.bsky.social www.quantamagazine.org/first-shape-...

I always enjoy @ericaklarreich.bsky.social’s math pieces. This is what a Noperthedron looks like:

In August, two mathematicians found a shape that puts an end to a centuries-old geometric mystery. @ericaklarreich.bsky.social reports: www.quantamagazine.org/first-shape-...

My latest for @quantamagazine.bsky.social is about a geometry problem devised more than three centuries ago by King Charles I's nephew, Prince Rupert of the Rhine, leader of the Royalist forces in the English Civil War. www.quantamagazine.org/first-shape-...

A new paper has forced a reckoning on cryptographers by showing how to harness a widely used proof technique to "prove" lies -- my latest for @quantamagazine.bsky.social www.quantamagazine.org/computer-sci...

An attack on a fundamental proof technique reveals a glaring security issue for blockchains and other digital encryption schemes. @ericaklarreich.bsky.social reports: www.quantamagazine.org/computer-sci...

Dear #mathsky, if you repost this, it will let people see the article for free. Thanks! www.nytimes.com/interactive/...

Some dimensions are weirder than others! In a new proof, mathematicians have shown that a certain kind of strangely twisted shape can exist only in dimensions 2, 6, 14, 30, 62 and 126. My latest for Quanta Magazine: www.quantamagazine.org/dimension-12...

A new proof represents the culmination of a 65-year-old story about anomalous shapes in special dimensions. @ericaklarreich.bsky.social reports: www.quantamagazine.org/dimension-12...

PhD Timeline xkcd.com/3081

Dennis Gaitsgory just won the $3 million Breakthrough Prize in mathematics; here's my deep dive from last year into his masterwork: www.quantamagazine.org/monumental-p...

Wrote an illustrated guide to what life was like before the Affordable Care Act. Spoiler: it was bad. Read the whole thing here: aubreyhirsch.substack.com/p/it-could-b...

If you accept that non-citizens have no right to due process, you are accepting that citizens have no right to due process. All the government has to do is claim that you are not a citizen; without due process you have no chance to prove the contrary.

There are days in life that shake you. I’m shattered 💔 to share that I just found out that the US Government terminated my 2024 NIH Director’s Early Independence Award (~$2 million), threatening my long-promised assistant professor job at Columbia University & academic career... 1/🧵

They're called public records for a reason. Starting today, WIRED will *stop paywalling* articles that are primarily based on public records obtained through the Freedom of Information Act, becoming the first publication to partner with @freedom.press to offer this for our new coverage.

Slate is offering free Slate Plus access to federal employees who lose their jobs. Here's how to sign up. @slate.bsky.social has lots of relevant career advice, money advice, smart news coverage & entertaining distractions from all the chaos and cruelty. slate.com/fed-plus

On Friday, we Stand Up for Science in locations Nationwide (& internationally!) to support science as a public good that benefits everyone. Join us! Visit www.standupforscience2025.org for more information & other ways to get involved ☀️

The American Mathematical Society has also started a page to coordinate support for professional mathematics, so far focusing on executive orders impacting the National Science Foundation: www.ams.org/government/g...

I hope this action is not forgotten. It will be a small thing in the tsunami of very bad things, but is symptomatic of so much. And I simply can't see that it is in any way the result of enforcement. This is the sort of anticipatory obedience that happens in authoritarian regimes.

In case you're in the mood for some good news today, I'm excited to announce @quantabooks.bsky.social, our new imprint at @simonsfoundation.org partnering with the amazing team at @fsgbooks.bsky.social. Learn more at www.quantabooks.org and send us your book queries!

In 2017, I wrote about how the center of gravity for math and science research moved from Germany to the United States under the Nazis and how public funding of science research allowed the US to remain the center of many fields after the war. That is under threat now. undark.org/2017/02/01/m...

"A proof that Riemann missed" -- my latest for @quantamagazine.bsky.social addresses an age-old question: which numbers are irrational? www.quantamagazine.org/rational-or-...

Hector Pasten didn't want to write an exam for his students, so he procrastinated by thinking about a nearly century-old problem about prime factors--and solved it! My latest for @quantamagazine.bsky.social #MathSky www.quantamagazine.org/big-advance-...

If you haven't encountered @littmath.bsky.social's probability puzzles on the other site, here's your chance to! My latest for @quantamagazine.bsky.social #MathSky www.quantamagazine.org/perplexing-t...

In a "crowning achievement," mathematicians have proved a major part of the profound mathematical vision called the Langlands program -- my latest for @quantamagazine.bsky.social #MathSky www.quantamagazine.org/monumental-p...

Mathematicians have made the first substantial progress in 80 years on understanding points in the plane that are integer distances apart -- my latest for @quantamagazine.bsky.social #MathSky

A Chicago computer scientist has made the first substantial progress in 50 years on a fundamental question in algebra: how to recognize when two groups are the same. My latest for @CACMmag: cacm.acm.org/magazines/20...

Mathematicians are "breathing new life into analytic number theory" by understanding how quickly buckets full of prime numbers start to even out -- my latest for @quantamagazine.bsky.social www.quantamagazine.org/a-new-genera...