“Many people don't realize that there are math questions that we don't know how to answer,” says mathematician Melanie Matchett Wood of Harvard University and the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced ...

It’s surprisingly difficult to prove one of the most basic properties of a number: whether it can be written as a fraction. A broad new method can help settle this ancient question. In June 1978, the ...

Mathematical truths are often born of the conflict between order and disorder. Mathematicians discover patterns, and, to better understand the mysterious forces at play, they look for countervailing ...

A basic feature of number theory, prime numbers are also a fundamental building block of computer science, from hashtables to cryptography. Everyone knows that a prime number is one that cannot be ...

In “The Great Math War,” Jason Socrates Bardi takes on a battle for the soul of numbers that divided the experts of its day. By Jordan Ellenberg Jordan Ellenberg, a professor of mathematics at the ...

The delightful math YouTube channel Numberphile is asking a surprisingly contentious question: what’s the smallest number we can be pretty sure no one has ever thought of before? Think of your own ...

Curious Kids is a series for children of all ages. If you have a question you’d like an expert to answer, send it to curiouskidsus@theconversation.com. Why don’t numbers end? – Reyhane, age 7, Tehran, ...