Have you ever sat in a math classroom and wondered, “When will I ever use this?” You might have asked yourself this question when you first encountered “imaginary” numbers, and with good reason: What ...

Several years ago one of us, Toni, asked another of us, Marco, to come to his office at the Institute of Photonic Sciences, a large research center in Castelldefels near Barcelona. “There is a problem ...

Imagine winding the hour hand of a clock back from 3 o’clock to noon. Mathematicians have long known how to describe this rotation as a simple multiplication: A number representing the initial ...

Imaginary numbers might seem like unicorns and goblins — interesting but irrelevant to reality. But for describing matter at its roots, imaginary numbers turn out to be essential. They seem to be ...

To celebrate Pi Day, we asked several mathematicians to tell us their favorite non-pi numbers. Here are some of their answers. When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate ...

Quick: What's 19 2...without your calculator? (361.) Squaring complex, two-digit numbers in your head isn't that difficult if you know a simple trick, according to the Secrets of Mental Math author ...