Would students take a stronger interest in math if they knew that an ancient African bone (from 20,000 B.C.) might be one of the world’s oldest known counting tools? Or that the work of Muslim ...

While American children once learned to add by reading a poster of animals and birds, they do it now by playing games on computers. Each step in between—whether it be a box of blocks or exercises ...

THANKS, in great measure, to the unwearied industry and acumen of Dr. Moritz Cantor, it is now comparatively easy to construct a synopsis of mathematical history down to the beginning of the ...

Like many of the cultures it studies, the Department of History of Mathematics has had innovative leaders, a golden era and, inevitably, a fall from glory. This year could witness the end of a ...

If you buy something using links in our stories, we may earn a commission. This helps support our journalism. Learn more. Please also consider subscribing to WIRED Math nerds and historians, it's time ...

Math is one of those disciplines that has a long and colorful history. If you want to learn more about the great math minds of the past, you should download Minds of Modern Mathematics from IBM. The ...

Hundreds of years before a Greek scholar outlined his proof of the Pythagorean theorem, ancient Chinese scholars proved it using just 17 characters, a renowned Chinese mathematician highlighted in a ...

THE book before us is Part 1 of a history which is intended to consist of three parts. This first part deals only with the history of the numeral notation and of arithmetic; the second will be devoted ...

Jeremiah Bartz owns shares in Nvidia. A shard of smooth bone etched with irregular marks dating back 20,000 years puzzled archaeologists until they noticed something unique – the etchings, lines like ...