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 ...

I’ve been out of school for decades, and I don’t spend my days solving equations (I’m more of a word person). Still, I like to think I have a solid grip on basic math: I can usually gauge whether a ...

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 Yorker writer Helen Rosner recently shared an image from a math workbook that her friend was working on with their child. The friend, an MIT grad, was stumped. “Neither he nor I have even the ...

Mathematicians excel at handling complexity and uncertainty. Mathematical reasoning strategies aren't just useful for dilemmas involving numbers. We can apply math mindsets to improve our approach to ...

One of my first vivid memories of math is of timed tests. I still remember how visceral my panic felt–sweaty palms, heart pounding–as I scrambled to recall facts before the clock ran out. You might ...