Mathematicians just made a big leap forward on one of the field’s all-time favorite problems. Curves—squiggly lines through space, such as a comet’s trajectory or a stock market trend—are some of math ...

For all of the recent strides we’ve made in the math world—like a supercomputer finally solving the Sum of Three Cubes problem that puzzled mathematicians for 65 years—we’re forever crunching ...