Tucked away in a seemingly forgotten corner of the Istanbul Archaeology Museum, Daniel Mansfield found what may solve one of ancient math’s biggest questions. First exhumed in 1894 from what is now ...

Add zero and one to get one, one and one to get two, one and two to get three, two and three to get five. Most of us know this—that each successive number is the sum of the two numbers that came ...

Plantlike designs on pottery made almost 8,000 years ago may be the earliest evidence yet of mathematical thinking. Many of the flower decorations painted on pottery by an ancient culture in northern ...

Scientists have long believed inroads in elementary calculus were developed in the 14th century. At that time in history, new concepts were developed to investigate a wide range of problems, one of ...

The absence of modern-day calculators did not stop ancient cultures from performing extraordinary feats of mathematics. The ancient Greeks kept count with abaci, frames with rods or grooves for moving ...

Legend says the Chinese military once used a mathematical ruse to conceal its troop numbers. The technique relates to many deep areas of modern math research. Imagine you’re a general in ancient times ...