How to safely reopen offices, schools and other public spaces while keeping people six feet apart comes down to a question mathematicians have been studying for centuries. Sphere packing might seem ...

They may not know it, but grocers face some of the most difficult questions in mathematics when stacking produce each day. Four centuries ago, the astronomer and mathematician Johannes Kepler guessed ...

Opting to build the Death Star in the shape of a sphere may not have been classic Star Wars villain Darth Vader’s wisest move, according to math teacher Ben Orlin. He investigates this burning ...

In a remarkable development, a human mathematician has achieved what many thought impossible: solving the centuries-old ...

In 1948, Hendrik Casimir predicted that a generalized version of van der Waals forces would arise between two metal plates due to quantum fluctuations of the electromagnetic field. These forces become ...