Around 1900 B.C., a student in the Sumerian city of Nippur, in what’s now Iraq, copied a multiplication table onto a clay tablet. Some 4,000 years later, that schoolwork survives, as do the student’s ...

§CQ.1 THE FIRST GREAT ADVANCE in algebra after the Middle Ages was the general solution of the cubic equation, immediately followed by a solution for the quartic. I tell the full story in the next ...

The History of Mathematics Research Group studies the origins and development of mathematical ideas and methods from the beginnings of recorded history—in all societies and cultures. Research in this ...

Praxis the robot and Alan the “human man” lead the letter X through the development of algebra from Ancient Egypt to Rene Descartes. Set students calculating tasks based on text. Ask them them to ...

In 1886 the mathematician Leopold Kronecker famously said, “God Himself made the whole numbers — everything else is the work of men.” Indeed, mathematicians have introduced new sets of numbers besides ...

University of Florida provides funding as a founding partner of The Conversation US. I discovered recently that my calculus students do not know the meaning of the word “quorum.” Since a course in ...