Mathematics, features and articles | Educational Science

Mar 31, 2023

Newly discovered 'einstein' tile is a 13-sided shape that solves a decades-old math problem

Look carefully! Mathematicians have invented a new 13-sided shape that can be tiled infinitely without ever repeating a pattern. They call it the einstein. For decades, mathematicians wondered if it was possible to find a single special shape that could perfectly tile a surface, without leaving any gaps or causing...

Jun 6, 2023

Mathematicians end decades-long quest to find elusive 'vampire einstein' shape

What has 14 sides, is full of curves, and can perfectly cover a surface with no gaps or overlaps? It's not a riddle — it's a vampire einstein. In March, a retired printing technician named David Smith stumbled upon a remarkable discovery in the world of mathematics. He found a...

Jun 15, 2023

A 79-year-old mathematician may have just solved an infinite dimension puzzle that's vexed theorists for decades

Two weeks ago, a modest-looking paper was uploaded to the arXiv preprint server with the unassuming title On the invariant subspace problem in Hilbert spaces. The paper is just 13 pages long and its list of references contains only a single entry. The paper purports to contain the final piece...

Jul 11, 2023

Mathematicians finally identify 'seemingly impossible' number after 32 years, thanks to supercomputers

Mathematicians armed with supercomputers have finally identified the value of a hefty number that was previously thought to be impossible to calculate. The number, known as the ninth Dedekind number or D(9), is actually the 10th in a sequence. Each Dedekind number represents the number of possible configurations of a...

Aug 11, 2023

Scientists uncover hidden math that governs genetic mutations

Scientists have discovered that a key function from a pure branch of mathematics can predict how often genetic mutations lead to changes in function. These rules, laid out by the so-called sum-of-digits function, also govern some aspects of protein folding, computer coding and certain magnetic states in physics. Part of...

Nov 17, 2023

The 9 most massive numbers in existence

Big numbers are everywhere, from the cells in the human body to the size of the universe. But once numbers edge past the realm of the physical, the human mind can struggle to grasp the sheer awesome scale of these numbers. Even infinity can seem easier to understand in comparison...

Nov 20, 2023

How long is a second?

There are 24 hours in a day, 60 minutes in an hour, and 60 seconds in a minute — so surely a second is just 1/(24 x 60 x 60), or 1/86400, of a day, right? Well, it turns out that defining time isn't that simple. We're used to thinking...

Nov 23, 2023

What is the largest known prime number?

Prime numbers have been investigated for more than 2,000 years, since at least the era of the ancient Greek mathematician Euclid. There are infinitely many, but what is the largest known prime number? Prime numbers are those that can be evenly divided only by 1 and themselves, such as 3...

Feb 22, 2024

World's oldest known decimal point discovered in merchant's notes from 1440s Italy

The decimal point is 150 years older than historians thought it was, newfound notes from 15th-century Italy reveal. Decimal points are so simple, it seems like they should have existed forever. These handy mathematical tools break up whole numbers into tenths, hundredths and thousandths, making computation much simpler than with...

Mar 14, 2024

12 surprising facts about pi to chew on this Pi Day

Math nerds everywhere are digging into a slice of pie today to celebrate their most iconic irrational number: pi. After all, March 14, or 3/14, is the perfect time to honor the essential mathematical constant, whose first digits are 3.14. Pi, or π, is the ratio of a circle's circumference...

Mar 14, 2024

Can you solve NASA's Pi Day 2024 riddle?

Happy Pi Day 2024! Have you ever wondered what it would be like to solve problems for NASA to help with the exploration of other planets in the solar system? In celebration of Pi Day 2024, you can do just that and take the annual NASA Pi Day Challenge. This...

Mar 15, 2024

Pi calculated to 105 trillion digits, smashing world record

A data storage company has decoded more than 100 trillion digits of pi — smashing the world record for calculating the never-ending number. Unraveling this hefty slice of pi required the equivalent computing power of hundreds of thousands of smartphones. Pi — often abbreviated as 3.14 — is an irrational...