No one knows how to find the smallest shape that can cover all other shapes of a certain width. But high school geometry is getting us closer to an answer. “Hey — I’ve got holes in some of my jeans.

From Quanta Magazine (find original story here). Most of the important discoveries in mathematics take place after decades or centuries of effort. If you want to attack the biggest problems, you’ll ...

Introduction Do you ever use math as a tool to solve interesting problems? In the 1970s math was often taught with simple worksheets. One teacher was looking for a way to help his students have more ...

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Counting will get you nowhere. Try a little combinatorics instead. By Kenneth Chang A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about a viral math problem — 8÷2(2+2) = ? — that drew the disdain of many ...