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 ...

You can probably think of a time when you’ve used math to solve an everyday problem, such as calculating a tip at a restaurant or determining the square footage of a room. But what role does math play ...

New findings are fueling an old suspicion that fundamental particles and forces spring from strange eight-part numbers called “octonions.” In 2014, a graduate student at the University of Waterloo, ...

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 ...

A forgotten number system invented in the 19th century may provide the simplest explanation for why our universe could have 10 dimensions As children, we all learn about numbers. We start with ...

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