Originally defined as the ratio between the circumference of a circle and its diameter, pi — written as the Greek letter π — appears throughout mathematics, including in areas that are completely ...

The ancient scholar Hippasus of Metapontum was punished with death for his discovery of irrational numbers—or at least that’s the legend. What actually happened in the fifth century B.C.E. is far from ...

The ancient Greeks wanted to believe that the universe could be described in its entirety using only whole numbers and the ratios between them — fractions, or what we now call rational numbers. But ...

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 ...

A mathematician has uncovered a way of answering some of algebra's oldest problems. University of New South Wales Honorary Professor Norman Wildberger, has revealed a potentially game-changing ...