This article is from Proof Positive, our friendly math newsletter that's delivered to your inbox every Tuesday afternoon. Sign up today and read it first. Last week I explained how a then 25-year-old ...

By encoding mathematical statements into numbers, mathematician Kurt Gödel used ordinary arithmetic to check whether a ...

When I tell someone I am a mathematician, one of the most curious common reactions is: “I really liked math class because everything was either right or wrong. There is no ambiguity or doubt.” I ...

What is pure mathematics? What do pure mathematicians do? Why is pure mathematics important? These are questions I’m often confronted with when people discover I do pure mathematics. I always manage ...