The Greek philosopher Plato wrote about Socrates challenging a student with the "doubling the square" problem in about 385 B.C.E. When asked to double the area of a square, the student doubled the ...

Computers are working to solve an age-old geometry problem. Humans can’t “square the circle” by hand, which was proven in the 1800s. Computer solutions involve infinity, complexity, and some ...

Long before robots could run or cars could drive themselves, mathematicians contemplated a simple mathematical question. They figured it out, then laid it to rest—with no way of knowing that the ...

In the third century BCE, Apollonius of Perga asked how many circles one could draw that would touch three given circles at exactly one point each. It would take 1,800 years to prove the answer: eight ...

But now, two mathematician friends have used their quarantine time to crack a variation of the age-old geometry problem. They analyzed a set of loopy shapes called smooth, continuous curves to prove ...

He wanted to be a poet, then a science journalist. Only in his last year in college did Dr. Huh discover math as a calling. By Kenneth Chang Most top mathematicians discovered the subject when they ...

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