Add Yahoo as a preferred source to see more of our stories on Google. When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. Mathematicians have solved ...

Ah, math. Take an easy problem we all studied in our teens, scale it up by just a couple of steps, and suddenly you’re facing something that has stumped generations of the world’s best mathematicians.

We solve polynomials algebraically in order to determine the roots - where a curve cuts the \(x\)-axis. A root of a polynomial function, \(f(x)\), is a value for \(x\) for which \(f(x) = 0\).

Roots can occur in a parabola in 3 different ways as shown in the diagram below: In diagram A, we can see that this parabola has 2 roots, diagram B has 1 root and diagram C has no roots. What type of ...

Polynomial equations are a cornerstone of algebra, familiar to every student in their basic quadratic form. But beyond degree 4, the complexity skyrockets. While formulas exist for equations up to the ...

Since ancient Greece, researchers have tried to isolate special rational points on curves. Now they have the first ever formula that applies uniformly to all curves ...

After German mathematician Gerd Faltings proved the Mordell conjecture in 1983, he was awarded the Fields Medal, often described as the “Nobel Prize of Mathematics.” The conjecture describes the set ...