Why is math so hard? And why, despite this difficulty, are some people so good at it? If there's some inborn capacity for mathematical thinking--which there must be, otherwise no one could do it --why can't we all do it well? Keith Devlin has answers to all these difficult questions, and in giving t[...]

Information has been called everything from the new gold standard to the fundamental building block of the universe. No matter where we live or what we do for a living, it is ever present in our lives, and many of us are barraged with it daily. Yet few of us know how to distinguish information from [...]

Leonardo of Pisa-better known today as Fibonacci-was the first Westerner to recognize the power of the Hindu-Arabic number system (featuring the numerals 0 through 9), which offered a much simpler method of calculation than the finger reckoning and cumbersome Roman numerals used at the time. His boo[...]

In 1202, a 32-year old Italian finished one of the most influential books of all time, which introduced modern arithmetic to Western Europe. Devised in India in the seventh and eighth centuries and brought to North Africa by Muslim traders, the Hindu-Arabic system helped transform the West into the [...]

There are two kinds of math: the hard kind and the easy kind. The easy kind, practiced by ants, shrimp, Welsh Corgis and us is innate. But what innate calculating skills do we humans have? Leaving aside built-in mathematics, such as the visual system, ordinary people do just fine when faced with[...]

"One of the best critiques of current mathematics education I have ever seen."--Keith Devlin, math columnist on NPR's "Morning Edition"A brilliant research mathematician who has devoted his career to teaching kids reveals math to be creative and beautiful and rejects standard anxiety-producing teach[...]

This book provides an account of those parts of contemporary set theory that are relevant to other areas of pure mathematics. Intended for advanced undergraduates and beginning graduate students, the text is written in an easy-going style, with a minimum of formalism. The book begins with a review o[...]

An account of the Clay Foundation's 2000 competition to solve seven high-level math problems references the Hilbert Problems of 1900 and cites the Millennium Problems' significance in the fields of math and science. 30,000 first printing.[...]