What better time to contemplate the conundrum that is zero than the start of a new year? Zero is a fairly new concept in human history and even more recent as a number. It wasn't until around the 7th ...

This article is adapted from Shape: The Hidden Geometry of Information, Biology, Strategy, Democracy, and Everything Else by Jordan Ellenberg. © Penguin Press 2021 ...

The ancient scholar Hippasus of Metapontum was punished with death for his discovery of irrational numbers—or at least that’s the legend. What actually happened in the fifth century B.C.E. is far from ...

Why do irrational numbers exist? originally appeared on Quora: the place to gain and share knowledge, empowering people to learn from others and better understand the world. Answer by Alon Amit, PhD ...

Extending a result of Khavinson and $\acute{S}wi\cedil{a}tek$ (2003) we show that the rational harmonic function $\overline {r(z)} - z$, where r(z) is a rational function of degree n > 1, has no more ...