math

Can You Find Spock By Solving This 1983 Math Problem?

Published in the May 1983 issue of the journal Mathematics Teacher, this amazing math problem challenges students to locate the USS Enterprise’s missing first officer—in 50 minutes or less—using compass and straightedge. Are you up to the task, cadet? This is a compass-and-straightedge construction math problem, so you’ll need to put down your laptop and…

io9 Mark Strauss Sep 17

Keeping Bike Shares Running Smoothly Requires Seriously Complex Math

Here’s kind of a dirty secret about bike share: Bikes don’t end up distributed evenly across the system, so most cities use trucks and trailers to shuffle the bikes around to the kiosks where they’re needed most at different times of day. Turns out it requires a complicated algorithm to determine exactly when and where…

Tech News Alissa Walker Aug 27

How to Fix a Wobbly Table Using Math

We’ve all been sat drinking a beer only to realize that the table wobbles irritatingly. But while a piece of folded paper can solve the problem for a few minutes, there is a better solution—and it uses some simple math. Matthias Kreck from the University of Bonn explains in this video how simply turning the…

Tech News Jamie Condliffe Aug 19

These Typefaces Are Tiny Math Puzzles Made by MIT Scientists

When quickly sending an email, creating a company logo, or writing a post about mathematical typefaces, hundreds of thousands of fonts exist to help express a specific mood or feeling though we rarely escape the realm of a well-known few. Although it’s well-documented that creating fonts can be an art, two mathematicians show that it…

Tech News Darren Orf Aug 14

The New Fields Medal Winner Was Inspired By a Rubik’s Cube

The Field medal is mathematics’ answer to the Nobel Prize, and this year’s winners have just been announced. Amongst them is Manjul Bhargava, one of the youngest people to be made a full professor at Princeton University, aged 28, whose work is inspired by… the Rubik’s Cube? Odd as that may seem, in an interview…

Tech News Jamie Condliffe Aug 13

A Computer Has Finally Proven the Answer to a 400-Year-Old Math Problem

Way back in 1611, Johannes Kepler suggested that the most efficient way to stack spheres—like arranging oranges for sale—was in a pyramid formation. Sadly, he couldn’t prove it, but now a computer has finally verified it to be true, settling centuries of debate. In fact, Thomas Hales of the University of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, developed a…

Tech News Jamie Condliffe Aug 12

The Powerful Equations That Explain the Patterns We See in Nature

Where do a zebra’s stripes, a leopard’s spots and our fingers come from? The key was found years ago – by the man who cracked the Enigma code. In 1952 a mathematician published a set of equations that tried to explain the patterns we see in nature, from the dappled stripes adorning the back of…

Tech News Kat Arney - Mosaic Aug 12

What’s the Most Boring Number?

To any good nerd, numbers are inherently interesting, whether they’re square, primes, part of the Fibonacci sequence… whatever. But some numbers aren’t so special—so what’s the most boring one? “With all due respect to 14972, 17807, 1121 and 2121…” starts Numberphile in this fun little video, before listing the reasons why it doesn’t like those…

Tech News Jamie Condliffe Aug 12

The Easy Way to Know the Height of the Cliff You’re Jumping Off

So you fancy yourself a pretty good cliff-jumper. You always personally inspect your landing spot for hazards and the necessary depth. Good. But here’s the thing, how do you know how much depth you need unless you know exactly how high you’re jumping from? With NASA smarts, that’s how. Our old friend, former NASA JPL…

Tech News Brent Rose Aug 5

Scientist invents math trick to slice bagel into two entangled halves

Bagels are delicious literally no matter which way you slice them—but are they more delicious when cut into a “mathematically perfect” shape? Stony Brook University’s engineering professor George W. Hart thinks he has found the magic formula. Hart created a way to cut bagels into interlocking chains. He thinks it’s the most mathematically correct way…

Sploid Kate Knibbs Jul 30

What’s bigger: 1/3 pound burgers or 1/4 pound burgers?

Do Americans really think 1/4 pound hamburgers are larger than 1/3 pound burgers? Apparently they did in the early 1980s. At least according to the New York Times — and the guy who bought the A&W restaurant chain back in 1982. You may have seen this bizarre example of American mathematical ignorance getting passed around…

Tech News Matt Novak Jul 25

Can You Match Wits With A Child Mathematical Genius?

There’s a legend in the mathematics community, about how a gifted youngster figured out a problem so brilliantly that his teacher allowed him to study on his own. We’ll tell you about the prodigy, and the story, and see if you can guess his methods. Carl Friedrich Gauss was a polymath whose life spanned the…

io9 Esther Inglis-Arkell Jul 21

Three Problems That Computers Will Never Be Able to Solve

Computers have advanced terrifically over the decades—but they’re not perfect. Here are three problems that, no matter how good they get, they’ll never be able to figure out. New Scientist has put together this lovely video that summarizes three questions a computer will never crack: the Halting Problem (given a program and its input, a…

Tech News Jamie Condliffe Jul 17

Measure the Width of Your Hair With a Laser Pointer!

I love learning new things to do with a laser pointer. (Usually I just blind people. That gets old.) This cool short video shows you how to measure the width of a human hair. This three-minute video, enlivened by footage of one scientist yanking the hair out of another scientist’s head, shows you how to…

io9 Esther Inglis-Arkell Jul 15

The Aloof Blackjack Player Who Created Our Digital World

Every digital device you use operates on a string of ones and zeroes, the binary “yes/no” decision at the foundation of modern computing. It’s a concept so fundamental to our modern day that we rarely stop to wonder where it came from. But it’s all the work of one man: Claude Shannon, whose fascinating story…

Physics & Chemistry Bob Sorokanich Jun 28

Why the Moon Looks Bigger on the Horizon

This is a question that has been debated for several thousand years. One popular myth, dating all the way back to Aristotle in the 4th century BC and which still endures somewhat today, is that it is simply a case of magnification caused by the Earth’s atmosphere. While a “magnification” effect is taking place, it…

Space & Spaceflight Daven Hiskey - TodayIFoundOut.com Jun 27

How to Choose a Public Toilet Using Math

Go to any large-scale outdoor event, like a music festival, and you’ll be confronted by an array of public toilets—but some may not really be fit to use by the time you get to them. Here’s how to ensure you get the best spot to relieve yourself, using math. In this video, Dr Ria Symonds…

Tech News Jamie Condliffe Jun 26

The Most Important Mathematician You’ve Never Heard Of

Sometimes, even the great, pivotal figures in science don’t get their due. In today’s very special “Ask a Physicist,” I’ll introduce you to Emmy Noether, one of the most important thinkers you might not have heard of. Top image: NASA. My column normally focuses on answering your outstanding (in both senses) questions about space, time,…

io9 Dr. Dave Goldberg Jun 25

These Mesmerizing GIFs Are Visual Proof That Math Can Be Cool

Teachers looking for ways to convince their students that math isn’t a boring slog have a convincing new set of visuals: GIF makers are using mathematics to craft hypnotic moving images. Even outside a classroom, they’re fascinating. Physics student David Whyte posts his geometric GIFs to a Tumblr called Bees & Bombs. Whyte uses an…

Tech News Kate Knibbs Jun 24

Silicon Valley Giants Just Handed Out $15M in Prizes to Mathematicians

The Breakthrough Prize Foundation, which is funded by the likes of Mark Zuckerberg, Sergey Brin and investor Yuri Milner, just doled out five $3 million awards to cutting edge math projects (which you almost certainly won’t understand). The Breakthrough Prizes—there have been two previously, for life science and fundamental physics—are designed to raise awareness of…

Tech News Jamie Condliffe Jun 23

Can You Find Spock By Solving This 1983 Math Problem?

Keeping Bike Shares Running Smoothly Requires Seriously Complex Math

How to Fix a Wobbly Table Using Math

These Typefaces Are Tiny Math Puzzles Made by MIT Scientists

The New Fields Medal Winner Was Inspired By a Rubik’s Cube

A Computer Has Finally Proven the Answer to a 400-Year-Old Math Problem

The Powerful Equations That Explain the Patterns We See in Nature

What’s the Most Boring Number?

The Easy Way to Know the Height of the Cliff You’re Jumping Off

Scientist invents math trick to slice bagel into two entangled halves

What’s bigger: 1/3 pound burgers or 1/4 pound burgers?

Can You Match Wits With A Child Mathematical Genius?

Three Problems That Computers Will Never Be Able to Solve

Measure the Width of Your Hair With a Laser Pointer!

The Aloof Blackjack Player Who Created Our Digital World

Why the Moon Looks Bigger on the Horizon

How to Choose a Public Toilet Using Math

The Most Important Mathematician You’ve Never Heard Of

These Mesmerizing GIFs Are Visual Proof That Math Can Be Cool

Silicon Valley Giants Just Handed Out $15M in Prizes to Mathematicians

Someone Finally Took a Good iPhone Photo of the Moon. Good Luck Copying Their Trick

In Letter, OpenAI Reportedly Says Elon Musk and Meta Are Coordinating ‘Attacks’ Against It

Artemis 2 Day 6: Follow the Mission With Our Live Updates 🔴

Anonymous Sources Detail Sam Altman’s Alleged Untrustworthiness in New Report

Steven Spielberg Still Wants to Make a Horror Film ‘Someday’

Waymo Has Stopped Testing Its Robotaxis in New York City and No One Knows What Happens Next

Samsung Pushes Monitor Deals Further, the 34″ ViewFinity Hits a Record Low at Nearly 40% Off

The Best Anti-Meta Smart Glasses Are About to Have Tough Competition

HP Omen Max 45L Review: 4K60 Gaming Has Never Been So Easy

Ecovacs Winbot W3 Omni Review: Window Cleaning Robots Have a Long Way to Go

AirPods Max 2 vs. Bose QuietComfort Ultra Headphones (2nd Gen): Which ANC Headphones Win?

The Best Gadgets of March 2026

AirPods Max 2 Review: Still Ridiculously Expensive and Ridiculously Nice

DJI Osmo 360 Review: The Best 360 Camera for the DJI-Pilled

Aqara Smart Lock U400 Review: Hands-free Unlocking at Its Best

MSI Prestige 14 Flip AI+ Review: A Solid 2-in-1 Laptop With Some Glaring Flaws

Let us help find what you are looking for...