The equal sign is the bedrock of mathematics. It seems to make an entirely fundamental and uncontroversial statement: These things are exactly the same. But there is ...

The Langlands program has inspired and befuddled mathematicians for more than 50 years. A major advance has now opened up new worlds for them to explore One of the biggest stories in science is ...

It’s surprisingly difficult to prove one of the most basic properties of a number: whether it can be written as a fraction. A broad new method can help settle this ancient question. In June 1978, the ...

Mathematics expands! Results once proven to be true remain forever true. They are not displaced by subsequent results, but absorbed in an ever- growing theoretical web. Thus, it is increasingly ...

Includes updates and/or revisions. The influence of a federal report calling for a more orderly approach to teaching mathematics in the early grades will hinge largely on whether its message is ...

The National Council of Teachers of Mathematics is a public voice of mathematics education, providing vision, leadership, and professional development to support teachers in ensuring mathematics ...

The original version of this story appeared in Quanta Magazine. In 1994, an earthquake of a proof shook up the mathematical world. The mathematician Andrew Wiles had finally settled Fermat’s Last ...

A Canadian mathematician has been awarded the Abel Prize — often referred to as the Nobel prize of mathematics, for a theory 50 years in the making. Robert Langlands, 81, who was born in New ...

Scanning the crowd at a fancy soiree may reveal a wide array of neckties, each fastened with a highly complex mathematical object masquerading as fashion. An entire field of mathematics is devoted to ...