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On Your Mark, Get Set, Multiply
The way you learned to multiply works, but computers employ a faster algorithm. This summer, battle lines were drawn over a simple math problem: 8 ÷ 2(2 + 2) =...
Why I’m Hosting The Joy of x Podcast
...delightful moment, equally unexpected, came in my conversation with the mathematician Alex Kontorovich, when he was telling me what it was like to work with one of the greatest mathematicians...
How Gödel’s Proof Works
...Gödel pulled off arguably one of the most stunning intellectual achievements in history. Mathematicians of the era sought a solid foundation for mathematics: a set of basic mathematical facts, or...
The Cosmologist Who Dreams in the Universe’s Dark Threads
...in humanities, in philosophy, and in math. I realized that in cosmology, I could sort of combine my interests in philosophical questions, applying math to study what happens in the...
What Is a Particle?
...physical makeup — ultimately, its constituent particles. But those particles’ properties derive not from constituents of their own but from mathematical patterns. As points of contact between mathematics and reality,...
How Neutral Theory Altered Ideas About Biodiversity
...size, the larger the drift,” Johri said. Part of the appeal of neutral theory is that it’s mathematically straightforward. “A lot of the theory was easy,” Johri explained, since essentially...
How I Learned to Love and Fear the Riemann Hypothesis
...the most important and notorious unsolved problem in all of mathematics — from the late, great Eli Stein, a world-renowned mathematician at Princeton University. I was very fortunate that Professor...
Finding Zen in the Art of Puzzle Solving
Readers used their Zen-like puzzle solving skills to discover hidden insights. The “eureka” or “aha” moment of insight is legendary in math and science, dating at least two millenniums back...
The Puzzling Power of Simple Arithmetic
...sort of thing that will get you hooked on mathematics. I daresay that if such examples of “guided discovery” were a regular part of math education at the lower and...