When my students grow too dependent on their calculators, I ask them to find a number that, when multiplied by itself, gives them 2. Students quickly see that since 1² = 1 and 2² = 4, the answer has ...

Originally defined as the ratio between the circumference of a circle and its diameter, pi — written as the Greek letter π — appears throughout mathematics, including in areas that are completely ...

Most people rarely deal with irrational numbers—it would be, well, irrational, as they run on forever, and representing them accurately requires an infinite amount of space. But irrational constants ...

Imagine being asked to pick a number from 1 to 10. You are quite likely to pick a whole number; I have never seen someone do otherwise. But you could also pick the number pi, whose decimal expansion ...

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Steven Pinker’s new bestseller, “Rationality: What It Is, Why It Seems Scarce, Why It Matters,” is filled with riddles and quizzes and problems to ponder. Reading it, I bombed on every single one. The ...