Cathleen S. Morawetz, whose achievements in mathematics found widespread practical use, helped open her profession to other women and made her the first female mathematician to receive the National ...

The proof Wiles finally came up with (helped by Richard Taylor) was something Fermat would never have dreamed up. It tackled the theorem indirectly, by means of an enormous bridge that mathematicians ...

For centuries, the Pythagorean Theorem has occupied a unique position in mathematics: both elementary and profound. Its equation, a² + b² = c², is taught early and used widely, yet its implications ...

Here's a scene from "The Royale," an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation that aired March 27, 1989. In it, Captain Jean-Luc Picard tells his First Officer, Commander Riker, about his work in ...

Here's what the hairiest problem in math can teach us about wind, antennas and nuclear fusion. When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Here’s how it works.

Herbert Simon, the Nobel-prize winning economist, was a techno-enthusiast. In 1956 he predicted that, “within 10 years, computers would beat the world chess champion, compose ‘aesthetically satisfying ...

In the 1970s, the late mathematician Paul Cohen, the only person to ever win a Fields Medal for work in mathematical logic, reportedly made a sweeping prediction that continues to excite and irritate ...

As I work proofs with my Calculus and Higher Geometries students, I often run across the Greek symbol that, in math, means “there exists." This might show up, for example, in statements such as “there ...