New computer tools have the potential to revolutionize the practice of mathematics by providing more-reliable proofs of mathematical results than have ever been possible in the history of humankind.
Since the start of the 20th century, the heart of mathematics has been the proof — a rigorous, logical argument for whether a given statement is true or false. Mathematicians’ careers are measured by ...
Number theorist Andrew Granville on what mathematics really is — and why objectivity is never quite within reach. In 2012, the mathematician Shinichi Mochizuki claimed he had solved the abc conjecture ...
If no human can check a proof of a theorem, does it really count as mathematics? That’s the intriguing question raised by the latest computer-assisted proof. It is as large as the entire content of ...