Most of us have little trouble working out how many millilitres are in 2.4 litres of water (it’s 2,400). But the same can’t ...

Most of us have little trouble working out how many millilitres are in 2.4 litres of water (it’s 2,400). But the same can’t be said when we’re asked how many minutes are in 2.4 hours (it’s 144).

Most of us have little trouble working out how many milliliters are in 2.4 liters of water (it's 2,400). But the same can't be said when we're asked how many minutes are in 2.4 hours (it's 144).

The p-adics form an infinite collection of number systems based on prime numbers. They’re at the heart of modern number theory. The rational numbers are the most familiar numbers: 1, -5, ½, and every ...

WHILE experimenting with a system of counting by twelves, 1 suddenly I came upon a series of numbers that behaved in the most extraordinary way. Discovery followed discovery. One day the whole ...

Recent progress on the “sum product” problem recalls a celebrated mathematical result that revealed the power of miniature number systems. It’s one thing to turn a cartwheel in an open field. It’s ...

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, ...

At the turn of the twentieth century, Abbe 1 and Bjerknes 2 proposed that the laws of physics could be used to forecast the weather; they recognized that predicting the state of the atmosphere could ...

Some 60,000 years ago, in what is now western France, a Neanderthal picked up a chunk of hyena femur and a stone tool and began to work. When the task was complete, the bone bore nine notches that ...

Jean-Charles Pelland's work has been made possible by financial support from the ‘QUANTA: Evolution of Cognitive Tools for Quantification’ project, which has received funding from the European ...