Ancient pots decorated with a dainty floral pattern may be hiding a much deeper secret: the origins of mathematical thought.

The original version of this story appeared in Quanta Magazine. David Bessis was drawn to mathematics for the same reason that many people are driven away: He didn’t understand how it worked. Unlike ...

The world's oldest known botanical art, from the Halafian culture of northern Mesopotamia around 6000 BCE, hides fascinating cultural shifts in its seemingly simple motifs, a new study reveals. The ...

Helena Osana receives funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. Concordia University provides funding as a founding partner of The Conversation CA. Universitié ...

The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their ...

In this wry, accessible, and entertaining exploration of everyday math, Ellenberg, professor of mathematics at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, shows readers how “knowing mathematics is like ...

There is a chasm between modernity and tradition, science and religion, skepticism and faith, the Devil and God. In the secular West, the Enlightenment Era separated church from state and removed God ...

Spatial reasoning ability in small children reflects how well they will perform in mathematics later. Researchers recently came to this conclusion, making the case for better cultivation of spatial ...

Math often feels disconnected from the real lives of students. They learn the steps, solve equations and check their work, ...

Math offers us lots of problem-solving techniques that help us distill the essence of questions. Many of us will be familiar with reading a math problem, and needing to figure out what's being asked, ...