
The Most Boring Number in the World Is ...
That prime numbers and powers of 2 fascinate many people comes as no surprise. In fact, all numbers split into two camps: interesting and boring

The Most Boring Number in the World Is ...
That prime numbers and powers of 2 fascinate many people comes as no surprise. In fact, all numbers split into two camps: interesting and boring

Babies Are Born with an Innate Number Sense
Plato was right: newborns do math


6 Marvelous Math Stories from 2022
Math made a splash this year. Here’s a look at the fascinating discoveries, mind-bending quests and important events in mathematics in 2022

Discovery Helps Computers Draw Intricate Two-Dimensional Animations
A new algorithm solves the long-standing “hidden line problem” of computer graphics

How Many Yottabytes in a Quettabyte? Extreme Numbers Get New Names
Prolific generation of data drove the need for prefixes that denote 1027 and 1030

Why 2 Is the Best Number and Other Secrets from a MacArthur-Winning Mathematician
Mathematician Melanie Matchett Wood seeks creative ways of solving open math problems

Mathematician Who Solved Prime Number Riddle Claims New Breakthrough
After shocking the mathematics community with a major result in 2013, Yitang Zhang now says he has solved an analogue of the celebrated Riemann hypothesis

Geometry Reveals the Tricks behind Gerrymandering
Some voting districts are tilted intentionally toward one party or another—a factor in the midterms. Geometry plays a critical role in gerrymandering

Ramsey Theory Extracts Order from Chaos when Sorting through Confusing Arrangements of Numbers
Mathematician Frank Ramsey showed how to discover coherent patterns among a multitude of number groupings

Citizens’ Assemblies Are Upgrading Democracy: Fair Algorithms Are Part of the Program
Math helps to randomly select the fairest citizens’ assemblies since antiquity

Can God Be Proved Mathematically?
Some mathematicians have sought a logical proof for the existence of God. Here’s what they discovered

How Squishy Math Is Revealing Doughnuts in the Brain
Topology, sometimes called rubber sheet geometry, is finding patterns in the brain, drugs and evolution