Math

It took Lisa Piccirillo less than a week to answer a long-standing question about a strange knot discovered over half a century ago by the legendary John Conway.

Preston McAfee, the chief economist at Microsoft, explains how auctions serve as price discovery mechanisms.

Can you reach row 4 in Conway's Soldiers? Vsauce2 demonstrates the challenge of playing this mathematical game.

Two ways of approximating the ultra-complicated math that governs quark particles have recently come into conflict, leaving physicists unsure what their decades-old theory predicts.

Presh from Mind Your Decisions has a brain-teaser that seems, at first glance, unfeasible to answer.

Brady Haran takes on one of Lewis Carroll's famous "pillow problems."

Companies like Walmart use computer programs to help them decide how much product to keep in stock. Those programs rely on historical data. The global disruption from the COVID-19 pandemic makes those programs less reliable.

Math used to be a comfort zone for me in times of confusion. Not anymore.

To solve the puzzle you have to slide the tiles around into a particular order. However, according to mathematicians, there is a particular order of the puzzle that is impossible to attain.

One practical exit strategy from lockdown would be identifying green zones, and progressively joining them together once it is safe to do so.

Just because the SAT was designed to test the mathematical proficiency of students doesn't mean it's flawless.

What happens when you combine music, Joe Rogan, and probability?

It's a lot more fun than the one you know.

Here's why this piece of music composed by Italian mathematician Giovanni Battista Benedetti is technically impossible.

The fascinating reason why "probability of 0" does not mean "impossible."

This guy says he finally solved the most controversial open math problem, which could completely change number theory. But other mathematicians are skeptical.

Mathematicians have figured out how to expand the reach of a mysterious bridge connecting two distant continents in the mathematical world.

When faced with the question, "if a stick breaks randomly in three pieces, what is the probability that a triangle can be formed from those pieces," here's a math theorem that will solve this question easily.

Mathematicians from the California Institute of Technology have solved an old problem related to a mathematical process called a random walk.

When 50 mathematicians spend a week in the woods, there's no telling what will happen. And that's the point.

"If we have good enough data, we can capture these behaviors."

When it is pointed out that the Babylonians counted to base-60, rather than base-10 as we do, people often ask if there is a connection. The short answer is no. The longer answer involves Babylonian astronomy.

The SIR Model is being used to predict the spread of the coronavirus — here's how it works.

A the U.S. stock market closed out its worst week since 2008. Amid such economic turbulence, some market researchers look to a familiar, powerful set of numbers to predict the future.

This is the (virtual) reality we live in now.

If you hung a picture by a string that's attached at two points on the back of the frame in a certain way, you can make it drop if you remove just one nail.

"Rainbow colorings" recently led to a new proof. It's not the first time they've come in handy.

Which is better, a product with fewer reviews and a 96% rating or a product with more reviews and a 93% rating?

Take the Pi Day challenge: How many decimal places can you nail with this method?

Rutgers University math professor Alex Kontorovich and a few of his friends gave a shrewd demonstration of pi using a pizza pie crust.

A litany of problems in business, finance, container ship loading and aircraft loading derive from this one simple question.

You might think it's mind reading, but really, it's just about math.

It's no secret that Americans aren't exactly leading the pack in mathematics.

A computer can make a decision faster. That doesn't make it fair.

An interactive map of mathematics as it stands today, mathematics as it is practiced by mathematicians. From simple starting points — Numbers, Shapes, Change — the map branches out into interwoven tendrils of thought.

New research has exploded the space of problems that quantum computers can efficiently verify, simultaneously knocking down milestone problems in quantum physics and math.

Looking for the answers to ax² + bx + c = 0? A mathematician has rediscovered a technique that the ancient Babylonians used.

Johnny Ball explains the brilliance of the Russian method of multiplication.

By exploiting randomness, three mathematicians have proved an elegant law that underlies the chaotic motion of turbulent systems.

Tracking the spread of disease requires precision and math. But super-spreaders, who transmit germs faster and further than other patients, can confound the model.

Doing so was inadvertent, but it taught me an important lesson.

From dripping faucets to the population growth of rabbits, the bifurcation diagram exists and can be applied in so many places.

I reached out to several geometry experts to see if we could arrive at a consensus answer. Turns out virtually all of the mathematicians I contacted found the same solution — but not all of them figured it out in the same way.

As Scarlett Howard taught honeybees to do arithmetic, they showed her how fundamental numbers might be to all brains.

Computer scientists are buzzing about a new mathematical proof that proposes a quantum-entangled system sort of like the one described above. It seems to disprove a 44-year-old conjecture and details a theoretical machine capable of solving the famous halting problem, which says a computer cannot determine whether it will ever be able to solve a problem it's currently trying to solve.

To escape from the room, you must enter into the keypad the correct answer to the question 230 x 10 + 2. As can be seen from this video, filmed from the perspective of the creator, it's not as easy a question as it seems.

In "The History of the University of Cambridge," author Edmund Carter praises the bridge as "one of the most curious pieces of carpentry of this kind in England."

Just four percent of the Turing Award's winners have been women. That lack of recognition has consequences.

Jason Fenske does the math on the Porsche Taycan, the company's first full-electric sports car — and finds it likely is faster than the Tesla Model S.

A new study suggests dogs can quickly estimate numerical values in a similar manner to humans and other primates.

Want to solve a Rubik's Cube? Then you have to know the numbers. Here's the amazing math behind the legendary toy, and how to use it to solve the puzzle.

Mathematicians regard the Collatz conjecture as a quagmire and warn each other to stay away. But now Terence Tao has made more progress than anyone in decades.

We finally know how big a set of numbers can get before it has to contain a pattern known as a "polynomial progression."

These $100 calculators have been required in classrooms for more than twenty years, as students and teachers still struggle to afford them

It was for a party where attendees come prepared with a three-minute lecture to deliver to their friends. You know, for fun.

In today's pettiest battles, NYC lashes out against people who can't afford to take their stupid trains.

It's difficult to effectively refute the claim that John von Neumann is likely the most intelligent person who has ever lived.

Three physicists stumbled across an unexpected relationship between some of the most ubiquitous objects in math.

Mathematicians have figured out exactly how many moves it takes to randomize a 15 puzzle.

Does a balance measure mass or weight? It's not always clear.