If pure math can teach us anything, it’s this: occasionally, your special interest might just change the world. For Joshua Zahl and Hong Wang, that special interest was the Kakeya conjecture. “I read ...

The one source of truth is mathematics. Every statement is a pure logical deduction from foundational axioms, resulting in absolute certainty. Since Andrew Wiles proved Fermat’s Last Theorem, you’d be ...

One of the biggest stories in science is quietly playing out in the world of abstract mathematics. Over the course of last year, researchers fulfilled a decades-old dream when they unveiled a proof of ...

The next number has to be 32, right? The pattern is clear: To find the next number, double the current one. We have 1 × 2 = 2; 2 × 2 = 4; 4 × 2 = 8; 8 × 2 = 16. The next number should be 16 × 2 = 32.

Some scientific discoveries matter because they reveal something new — the double helical structure of DNA, for example, or the existence of black holes. However, some revelations are profound because ...

You enter a cave. At the end of a dark corridor, you encounter a pair of sealed chambers. Inside each chamber is an all-knowing wizard. The prophecy says that with these oracles’ help, you can learn ...

Using words like ‘factors,’ ‘denominators’ and ‘multiples’ may be part of a constellation of good math teaching practices ...