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 ...

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 ...

War in Europe is a staple topic in the study of history, but there’s one major conflict most history books won’t teach you: the battle of the equal sign, =. These two parallel lines were, in fact, the ...

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

The study of mathematics has existed since ancient times. Multiplication tables and other math exercises have been found carved into Babylonian tablets from some 3,700 years ago. But the symbols that ...

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.