How bees, beer cans and big data all solve the same problem: not enough space. By Steven Strogatz Photo illustrations by Jens Mortensen Each installment of “Math, Revealed” starts with an object, ...

Imagine trying to stack oranges as tightly as possible so that no space is wasted. Simple enough in a grocery store. Now imagine doing it in a world with eight dimensions, a space that exists not in ...

After just a few months of work, a complete newcomer to the world of sphere packing has solved one of its biggest open problems. In math, the search for optimal patterns never ends. The sphere-packing ...