ROBERT P. CREASE is a professor in the philosophy department at Stony Brook University, a historian at the Brookhaven National Laboratory and a columnist for Physics World. This is adapted from an ...

The first proof that many people ever learn, early in high school, is the ancient Greek mathematician Euclid’s proof that there are infinitely many prime numbers. It takes just a few lines and uses no ...

Mathematics is distinguished from the sciences by the freedom it enjoys in choosing basic assumptions from which consequences can be deduced by applying the laws of logic. We call the basic ...

My math history class is currently studying non-Euclidean geometry, which means we've studied quite a few "proofs" of Euclid's fifth postulate, also known as the parallel postulate. If you're enjoying ...

The public’s view of the mathematician as a reclusive genius toiling away for years at an arcane problem is one that will not go away. The media have enthusiastically seized on this image since the ...