Research in mathematics is a deeply imaginative and intuitive process. This might come as a surprise for those who are still recovering from high-school algebra. What does the world look like at the ...

I have two children, one of whom is a son born on a Tuesday. What is the probability that I have two boys? Gary Foshee, a puzzle designer from Issaquah, Wash., posed this puzzle during his talk this ...

There’s a line from the original Star Trek where Khan says, “Improve a mechanical device and you may double productivity, but improve man and you gain a thousandfold.” Joan Horvath and Rich Cameron ...

Sometimes your gut feelings lead you astray—particularly in mathematics, in which one constantly comes across results that seem impossible. For example, infinity does not always equal infinity, and ...

University of Florida provides funding as a founding partner of The Conversation US. Math can’t catch a break. These days, people on both ends of the political spectrum are lining up to deride the ...

Poker players sometimes distinguish between intuitive and mathematical play. But most interesting strategic decisions have an element of both, because the mathematical analysis depends on estimates ...