Kids in elementary school learn—or are supposed to learn—how to add fractions and round numbers. But many students at the University of California, San Diego—a top public university ranked sixth ...

Scientists who study monkeyflowers sometimes feel as though the plants are looking back at them. The blooms are said to resemble the faces of playful monkeys—hence the name—complete with a speckled ...

Randomly scramble the digits 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6 to form a seven-digit number (or a six-digit number if the leading digit is 0). Rank the following events in order ...

Using a new computer model, scientists simulated the stripes, spots and hexagons on a species of boxfish, imperfections and all. A male ornate boxfish with distinctive, complex patterns of stripes and ...

It began as a strange discovery buried in chaos theory — a mathematical pattern that seemed to predict real events before they happened. From climate shifts to stock market crashes, scientists now ...

Prime numbers are sometimes called math’s “atoms” because they can be divided by only themselves and 1. For two millennia, mathematicians have wondered if the prime numbers are truly random, or if ...

Brain teasers are a fun way to test one's thinking skills. These puzzles give the brain a quick workout. A recent challenge that went viral online has math lovers excited. The puzzle asks users to ...

Last year, onlookers observed a startling site on China’s Qiantang River: waves forming a grid-like pattern. Dubbed the “matrix tide,” this complex wave pattern was caused by the river’s famed tidal ...

Katie has a PhD in maths, specializing in the intersection of dynamical systems and number theory. She reports on topics from maths and history to society and animals. Katie has a PhD in maths, ...