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 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 1886 the mathematician Leopold Kronecker famously said, “God Himself made the whole numbers — everything else is the work of men.” Indeed, mathematicians have introduced new sets of numbers besides ...

For centuries, one of algebra’s oldest puzzles has remained unsolved—how to find exact answers for higher-degree polynomials, where the variable is raised to the fifth power or more. Mathematicians ...