The Latest Breaking News from Mathematics

When wordplay meets numberplay

The prime minister, Rishi Sunak, has proposed that school pupils should continue learning maths until 18 in order to obtain the numeracy skills needed in careers and everyday adult life. This proposal may be useful to current teenagers – but what about those of us who have already started grappling…

Today, elementary mathematics classrooms look and sound very different than what many parents may have experienced.

DfE figures show selective King’s College London mathematics school topped results in England last summer

The British PM may believe that compulsory maths is the key to education – but Asawa showed a different path, armed with little more than flour and water

UK prime minister Rishi Sunak has proposed making the study of mathematics compulsory for all students in England up to the age of 18, to help young people “in a world where data is everywhere and statistics underpin every job”.

Forcing students to endure a subject that many find unenjoyable could end up putting some off A-levels altogether, says mathematician and author Kit Yates

Science and maths skills are widely celebrated as keys to economic and technological progress, but abstract mathematics may seem bafflingly far from industrial optimisation or medical imaging. Pure mathematics often yields unanticipated applications, but without a time machine to look into the future, how do mathematicians like me choose what…

With inflation in the UK and around the world threatening to spiral out of control, prices of everything from milk to oil, energy and Christmas presents are a concern for most of us. Most people understand prices as simply the result of supply and demand – an agreement between sellers…

To answer life’s biggest questions, says the German theoretical physicist and YouTuber, we need to abandon unscientific ideas such as the multiverse

With math scores on the decline, a professor explains that math isn't a natural skill, but a learned one