Long before forests spread across the continents, before the first animals walked on land and even before the age of dinosaurs, a remarkable process was unfolding beneath Earth’s surface. Deep underground, a series of natural nuclear reactions began inside unusually rich uranium deposits, releasing energy in cycles over an immense stretch of time. Nothing had…

At first glance, Joan R. Ginther’s story sounds almost too extraordinary to be true. The American mathematician, who earned a doctorate in statistics from Stanford University, won four major Texas Lottery prizes between 1993 and 2010, collecting more than $20 million in total. Her repeated success quickly sparked speculation that she had discovered a mathematical…