You have most likely encountered one-sided objects hundreds of times in your daily life – like the universal symbol for recycling, found printed on the backs of aluminum cans and plastic bottles. This ...

Researchers demonstrate that our brain need only perform a few lightning-fast statistical calculations to detect key properties of unknown objects. From a child snapping Legos together to a pickpocket ...

Today’s puzzle is about defenestration. Now there’s a word I’ve never used in this column before. Design an object that cannot pass through an open window, but can pass through one that is almost half ...

When Lisa Piccirillo solved a decades-old mystery about the “Conway knot,” she had to overcome the knot’s uncanny ability to hoodwink some of the most powerful tools mathematicians have devised. Known ...

NMAH copy 39088019964634 signed by author. Mathematics is not just the product of lone geniuses dreaming up ideas remote from everyday life: real social, political and cultural problems drive ...