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 ...

Ubiratan D’Ambrósio, an authority on the fields of ethnomathematics, math education and the history of mathematics, offers two talks at Bates College on Thursday, Sept. 18. At 4:30 p.m., D’Ambrosio ...

History shows that these speculative episodes will happen and those who know history are to avoid participation in these episodes. It was tulips in the Netherlands, common stock in the South Seas, ...

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 ...

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 ...

Mathematics and art are generally viewed as very different disciplines – one devoted to abstract thought, the other to feeling. But sometimes the parallels between the two are uncanny. From Islamic ...

The narrow paths between the book-crammed shelves at the Department of the History of Mathematics in Wilbour Hall might induce claustrophobia. And the stacks of yellowing, oversized photocopies are ...

A while ago, I got interested in mathematics, mostly because I had done so poorly at it in school. I’m being coy. I didn’t do poorly; I pretty much failed. I only passed by cheating. Anyway, I bought ...