Forbes contributors publish independent expert analyses and insights. I write about the future of learning, work and human development. Okay, we cut a bad deal 20 years ago and it’s time to fix it.

The basic facts about separable extensions of discrete fields and factoring polynomials are developed in the constructive spirit of Errett Bishop. The ability to factor polynomials is shown to be ...

Adam Hayes, Ph.D., CFA, is a financial writer with 15+ years Wall Street experience as a derivatives trader. Besides his extensive derivative trading expertise, Adam is an expert in economics and ...

A polynomial is a chain of algebraic terms with various values of powers. There are some words and phrases to look out for when you're dealing with polynomials: \(6{x^5} - 3{x^2} + 7\) is a polynomial ...

Vesselin Dimitrov’s proof of the Schinzel-Zassenhaus conjecture quantifies the way special values of polynomials push each other apart. In the physical world, objects often push each other apart in an ...

Digital security depends on the difficulty of factoring large numbers. A new proof shows why one method for breaking digital encryption won’t work. My recent story for Quanta explained a newly proved ...