(The Conversation is an independent and nonprofit source of news, analysis and commentary from academic experts.) Surprise: You can answer this question with modern algebra. Most folks who have been ...

Homotopy theory, a central facet of algebraic topology, investigates spaces and maps up to continuous deformations, offering a flexible framework for understanding spatial and categorical structures.

Courtney Gibbons is affiliated with the Association for Women in Mathematics and the American Mathematical Society. You might remember learning about the quadratic formula to figure out the solutions ...