The original version of this story appeared in Quanta Magazine. So far this year, Quanta has chronicled three major advances in Ramsey theory, the study of how to avoid creating mathematical patterns.

While I was looking for a gift for a child’s birthday, a math book fell into my hands. I am always fascinated when authors write about abstract scientific topics for children, whether it’s on Albert ...

So far this year, Quanta has chronicled three major advances in Ramsey theory, the study of how to avoid creating mathematical patterns. The first result put a new cap on how big a set of integers can ...