Every mathematician has a story that goes something like this. You’re at a party, and someone asks what you do for a living. “I’m a mathematician,” you say. “You must be a genius!” they reply. Or ...

In the early 1970s mathematician Donald Knuth spent a sabbatical with his wife in Norway. The time was meant to be spent relaxing. Yet one night he woke up his partner in a state of agitation. He ...

Weird Math sets out to “reveal the strange connections between math and everyday life.” The book fulfills that laudable goal, in part. At times, teenage math prodigy Agnijo Banerjee and his tutor, ...

Complex numbers are numbers that consist of two parts — a real number and an imaginary number. Complex numbers are the building blocks of more intricate math, such as algebra. They can be applied to ...

You can probably think of a time when you’ve used math to solve an everyday problem, such as calculating a tip at a restaurant or determining the square footage of a room. But what role does math play ...

Real numbers are, in fact, pretty much any number that you can think of. This can include whole numbers or integers, fractions, rational numbers and irrational numbers. Real numbers can be positive or ...