A long-standing mathematical conundrum has been solved by ChatGPT in a few hours, with only a few simple prompts. The Dinitz-Garg-Goemans conjecture is a 30-year-old question in graph theory, but a ...

A mathematician opens her office door to find a small fire. Without panicking, she looks around the room and spots a fire extinguisher. “Ah, a solution exists!” she says, before closing the door and ...

Only Slate Plus members can gift Slate stories. Become a member to share 10 free articles a month. Sign up for the Slatest to get the most insightful analysis, criticism, and advice out there, ...

A conversation with author Anne Morriss on why the slow and steady approach can leave issues unresolved. When it comes to solving complex, layered problems, the default for many organizational leaders ...

This month, 30 mathematicians gathered at Harvard University to grade a consequential and difficult problem set. This wasn’t just any test; its outcome would guide a field grappling with existential ...

The bees had to roll the ball under a blue "flower," then stand atop the moved object to access a sweet treat. Mikko Törmänen / University of Oulu Some bumblebees can spontaneously solve problems, a ...

For new discoveries, everyday mysteries, and the science behind the headlines, follow NPR's ShortWave podcast . Over a century ago, the German psychologist Wolfgang Köhler conducted what became a ...

In a new study, bumble bees solve a completely novel object-manipulation task. What makes this behavior especially remarkable is that the bees had never been trained. The findings challenge the ...

Despite having tiny brains, bumblebees have demonstrated a remarkable ability to socially learn how to use tools, solve simple puzzles, and cooperate to achieve a goal. It seems they can also solve ...

In mid-May, OpenAI announced that an internal AI model had disproved the Erdős unit distance conjecture, a famous problem in discrete geometry that had stumped human mathematicians for the last 80 ...

About seven hours into the flight of Artemis II, Commander Reid Wiseman experienced something many earthbound Microsoft users know all too well: his Outlook email stopped working. Speaking with ...

Something shifted in Dan Wang’s class at Columbia Business School in the fall of 2022. Instead of his students showing up prepared with persuasive arguments about business decisions, many students had ...