Ultrafinitism, a philosophy that rejects the infinite, has long been dismissed as mathematical heresy. But it is also ...

When Ed Scheinerman's 7-year-old granddaughter asked the question that every mathematician secretly loves—"What is the number before infinity?"—he knew he was onto something. "You're not going to like ...

For centuries, the concept of infinity has captivated mathematicians and philosophers alike, stretching far beyond the simple idea of endless counting. Recent groundbreaking discoveries, however, have ...

Although it has ancient roots, the meaning of infinity remains baffling, and it seems to have absolutely no bearing on everyday life. The mathematics of infinity is complex, but it isn’t simply a very ...

We preselected all newsletters you had before unsubscribing.

Sometimes your gut feelings lead you astray—particularly in mathematics, in which one constantly comes across results that seem impossible. For example, infinity does not always equal infinity, and ...

Frank Merle is used to confronting a messy world. He works on the mathematics of highly nonlinear systems—ones that respond in dramatic, unpredictable ways to even the smallest changes. It’s the same ...