This article is from Proof Positive, our friendly math newsletter that's delivered to your inbox every Tuesday afternoon. Sign up today and read it first. Last week I explained how a then 25-year-old ...

By encoding mathematical statements into numbers, mathematician Kurt Gödel used ordinary arithmetic to check whether a ...

A mathematical statement everyone believes but no one can prove Some mathematical statements feel undeniably true the moment you hear them. Yet proving them can be impossible. This theorem has ...

What is pure mathematics? What do pure mathematicians do? Why is pure mathematics important? These are questions I’m often confronted with when people discover I do pure mathematics. I always manage ...

When I tell someone I am a mathematician, one of the most curious common reactions is: “I really liked math class because everything was either right or wrong. There is no ambiguity or doubt.” I ...