Math Concepts

Does your brain start to cramp at the thought of having to do math? Experts explain why some people have math anxiety and how they can overcome it.

By Dave Roos

Anti-aging scientist Aubrey de Grey, who does math problems for relaxation, just made major progress on the daunting Hadwiger-Nelson problem.

By Patrick J. Kiger

English mathematician Benjamin Gompertz formulated the first natural law of the way we die.

By Jesslyn Shields

The flick, the shake and the micromort are just three of the unusual measurements that scientists use.

By Dave Roos

A new analysis of the ancient Indian Bakhshali manuscript suggests the numerical symbol zero, as we use it today, may be centuries older than previously believed.

By Patrick J. Kiger

A reinterpretation of an ancient Babylonian tablet shows that trigonometry might be 1,000 years older than thought. But there's some disagreement.

By Jesslyn Shields

Two physicists have worked out a mathematical model for time travel. Now we just need some heretofore unseen exotic matter to get traveling.

By Ian O'Neill, Ph.D.

Dangerous and unpredictable, rogue waves in the ocean seem to more closely resemble light waves than water waves.

By Jesslyn Shields

Has this ever happened to you? The meteorologist calls for a massive snowstorm, but the flakes fail to arrive. Chaos theory can shed light on why forecasts fail (and why our orderly world may not be so orderly after all).

By William Harris

For many of us, a number is just a number, a bit of information that tells you, say, what time it is. But mathematicians look at that same number and divine relationships that underlie nature itself. Ready to enter the trippy world of number theory?

By Robert Lamb

You use the number zero all the time, but it may surprise you to learn that it sometimes isn't a number at all. It may surprise you even more to learn that it was all but invented. See what else surprises you about zero in this article.

By Josh Clark

Fractals have been around forever but were only defined in the last quarter of the 20th century. Think you can wrap your brain around how fractals work?

By Craig Haggit

A world without math is unimaginable. It's a part of who we are. It's the analytical juice of our left brain. In the words of physicist Richard Feynman, even a fool can use it. So why do so many of us turn our backs on numbers?

By Robert Lamb

Mathematics achieves the sublime. Sometimes, as with tessellations, it rises to art. In their simplest form, tessellations consist of a single shape that repeats over a two-dimensional plane without any gaps. Why was M.C. Escher so fixated on them?

By Nicholas Gerbis

The Fibonacci sequence has been a numerical sequence for millennia. But what does it have to do with sunflower seeds or rabbits?

By Robert Lamb & Jesslyn Shields