Take an outline map of the lower 48 U.S. states and four crayons. Can you shade in the map so that every state is a different color than each of its neighbors, without resorting to a fifth color? This ...

Imagine you're a mapmaker, ready to finish your masterpiece map of the world. The only thing left to do is add the colors. But how many colors do you need for the countries if you want to make sure no ...

2025 marked a historic year in mathematics. Researchers solved a major case of Hilbert’s ambitious sixth problem, proved a sweeping new theorem about hyperbolic surfaces, and settled the longstanding ...

Australian National University provides funding as a member of The Conversation AU. Recently, as a community ambassador for ANU Student Equity, I took to a local secondary school to talk maths with a ...

Allow me to introduce you to what was, for over 100 years, the Four Color Conjecture—that is, until the mid '70s, when mathematicians Appel and Haken made it the first major mathematical concept to be ...

Computers have helped us prove many theorems, which like the four-color theorem are mostly combinatorial or discrete in nature. For domains like dynamical systems, however, computer-assisted proofs ...