The symbols we use every day have fascinating and surprisingly recent origins, explains author Joseph Mazur in his new book A few years ago friends and I were talking about the origins of written ...

Dunning explores how mathematical notation is a social, world-building technology. It’s natural to think of math as being ...

THE work before us constitutes an important contribution to the history of mathematics. The development of mathematical notation is a fascinating subject in itself; but, the literature being so vast ...

Mazur (Euclid in the Rainforest) gives readers the fascinating history behind the mathematical symbols we use, and completely take for granted, every day. Mathematical notation turns numbers into ...

Before the 16th century, most math equations were written as metered verse. Thank god for graphic-design-inclined mathematicians.

THE first volume of this invaluable work was noticed in our columns on July 6, 1929, p. 4. The vast quantity of material which had to be digested constrained the author to divide it into two volumes, ...

Before the 16th century, most math equations were written as metered verse. Thank god for graphic-design-inclined mathematicians. The study of mathematics has existed since ancient times.

It all started in a wine bar in Italy. During a monthlong residency at the Rockefeller Foundation’s Bellagio Center in 2008, Joseph Mazur, PhD ’72, spent an evening chatting with a musician and a ...

As I told my class on Thursday, the theme of the first week of our math history course was “easy algebra is hard in base 60.” We started the semester in ancient Mesopotamia, trying to understand ...