When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. Mathematicians have solved a longstanding algebra problem, providing a general solution for ...

When I took Calculus in college, my Professor would give us substantial partial credit for test problems that we got wrong for minor arithmetic errors, and rightfully so, too. Sometimes even ...

Van der Waerden’s conjecture mystified mathematicians for 85 years. Its solution shows how polynomial roots relate to one another. The equation x 2 – 5 = 0 is a bit trickier. The polynomial can’t be ...