The quest to approximate irrational numbers with fractions reveals hidden patterns, surprising hierarchies and enduring mathematical mysteries ...

Abstract: Binary floating-point numbers with finite precision cannot represent all decimal numbers with complete accuracy. This can often lead to errors while performing calculations involving ...

Imagine a number made up of a vast string of ones: 1111111…111. Specifically, 136,279,841 ones in a row. If we stacked up that many sheets of paper, the resulting tower would stretch into the ...

Prime numbers are only divisible by themselves and one. Robert Brook via Getty Images In the 17th century, French monk and mathematician Marin Mersenne developed a method to find prime numbers: values ...

For the first time in more than 25 years, mathematicians have proven a new way to identify prime numbers, and in doing so developed a toolkit that could allow further advances in number theory. Prime ...

Decimal notation describes numbers using the digits 1 through 10. Binary notation describes them using just two digits, 1 and 0, where each bit in a string represents a power of 2. The right-most bit ...

“The Secret Lives of Numbers,” by Kate Kitagawa and Timothy Revell, highlights overlooked contributions to the field by ancient thinkers, non-Westerners and women. By Alec Wilkinson Alec Wilkinson is ...

Here’s a game: Ask a friend to give you any number and you’ll return one that’s bigger. Just add “1” to whatever number they come up with and you’re sure to win. The reason is that numbers go on ...

A Java library that abstracts the mathematical operations on real decimal numbers represented in computer memory as floating-point binary numbers or arbitrary-precision decimal numbers.

The humble decimal point may have been invented about 150 years before we previously thought. Experts had previously credited German mathematician Christopher Clavius for the innovation, but according ...

On π-day, one mathematician explores our fascination with pi and asks why we obsessively compute its digits. Pi Day, the International Day of Mathematics, is celebrated on 14 March, due to the date's ...