Content about “

history of mathematics

”

How a maths competition spawned the foundations of chaos theory.

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.

Euler may not have cracked this problem completely, but it led to a lot of important work, including on what we today know as sudoku.

Can you move a knight on a chessboard so that it visits every square exactly once? Euler was one of the first to analyse this problem systematically, but some questions about it are still open today.

Five favourite problems inspired by Leonhard Euler, one of the greatest mathematicians of all time.

Why did physicists at the beginning of the 20th century feel they needed a new — and strange — theory?

How to optimally fill a box with eight-dimensional oranges.

Ada Lovelace, born 200 years ago this month, is hailed the world's first computer programmer. What exactly was her contribution to computer science?

A hundred years ago, on 25 November 1915, Einstein first presented his general theory of relativity. We explore this famous theory and what it says about the world we live in.

A fascinating discovery sheds new light on the work of the Indian mathematician Srinivasa Ramanujan.