The use of '=' to mean 'equals' is one of those minor advances in mathematics that we take for granted. It's so small that we don't really think about it. But Joseph Mazur, the author of Enlightening ...

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The study of mathematics has existed since ancient times. Multiplication tables and other math exercises have been found carved into Babylonian tablets from some 3,700 years ago. But the symbols that ...

THE first volume of this invaluable work was noticed in our columns on July 6, 1929, p. 4. The vast quantity of material which had to be digested constrained the author to divide it into two volumes, ...

Excerpted with permission from Our Mathematical Universe: My Quest for the Ultimate Nature of Reality, by Max Tegmark. Available from Random House/Knopf. Copyright ...