Neutrinos Lead to Unexpected Discovery in Basic Math

A group of physicists have discovered a hitherto unknown mathematical relationship that can be used to explain how neutrinos change state. What makes this story interesting is that the mathematical relationship is fairly simple (at least in terms of higher math) but previously unknown.

The physicists — Stephen Parke of Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, Xining Zhang of the University of Chicago and Peter Denton of Brookhaven National Laboratory — had arrived at the mathematical identity about two months earlier while grappling with the strange behavior of particles called neutrinos.

They’d noticed that hard-to-compute terms called “eigenvectors,” describing, in this case, the ways that neutrinos propagate through matter, were equal to combinations of terms called “eigenvalues,” which are far easier to compute. Moreover, they realized that the relationship between eigenvectors and eigenvalues — ubiquitous objects in math, physics and engineering that have been studied since the 18th century — seemed to hold more generally.

Although the physicists could hardly believe they’d discovered a new fact about such bedrock math, they couldn’t find the relationship in any books or papers. 

The article does a good job of explaining the significance of the discovery and you don't need to have a math or physics degree to understand it. It's also a great example of good science communication.