Content about “

history of mathematics

”

Mathematicians like to think that their field transcends politics, but as this brief history of the International Congress of Mathematicians shows, international mathematics has always been coloured by world events.

A quick introduction to transcendental numbers, a famous problem which relates to them, and how the person who solved it became a victim of political tensions.

Write an article, make a movie, or create a multi-media presentation to explore the world of maths and win prizes!

David Spiegelhalter, one of our favourite experts on statistics, recently joined David Attenborough, Bill Bryson and other eminent contributors on the Royal Society's People of Science series. You can watch the video here.

How Heron of Alexandria missed his chance to explore the unknown mathematical land of complex numbers.

This talk traces the history of zero, looks at its role in maths and science, and even finds a link to the London Underground map.

A brief introduction to the famous nurse and statistician.

How a maths competition spawned the foundations of chaos theory.

Write an article, make a movie, or do a multi-media presentation to explore the world of maths and win prizes! Competition is open to 11 to 19 year-olds.

The self-taught genius would have turned 129 in December.

This problem about an infinite sum has a surprising answer.

This surprising result about 3D shapes tells us something deep about the nature of space.