It’s a complaint many algebra teachers are familiar with, as more letters and symbols are introduced with progressively harder courses in mathematics. But why did the plus symbol emerge as the ...

A set of the six sides of a die matches up one-to-one with a set of red shoes, helping illustrate Georg Cantor's set theorem. Image courtesy of GBH/NOVA It can be easy to take math for granted. But ...

What do math equations look like when the numbers are translated into form and the form is rendered in, say, silk, or glass? In Fragments of Infinity: A Kaleidoscope of Math and Art, Ivars Peterson ...

Though there are plenty of popular books explaining the wonders of math and physics, new ones continue to appear. To avoid recycling the same ideas and examples, metaphors and stories, authors are ...

One of the strangest results in mathematics explains how it’s possible to turn one sphere into two identical copies, simply by rearranging its pieces. Imagine two friends hiking in the woods. They ...