Generally speaking, if your English-speaking child is at least six years old by the end of the year, there are some standard things they should know and be able to do.
Articles on Numbers
Displaying 21 - 39 of 39 articles
Honeybees are good at maths, but it was thought they could only count to four. That is, unless you present them with a task in which they are punished with a bitter-tasting drink for getting it wrong.
How mathematically proficient are you? And do you have the skills to back up your level of math confidence? The answers to those questions may have ramifications for your financial and physical health.
The Romans were great engineers but they had a terrible number system. It didn’t even have zero.
To multiply two numbers by hand take a few steps but it’s something we’re taught in school. When dealing with big numbers, really big numbers, we need to a quicker way to do things.
Numbers are largely viewed as holding the truth. But this is an unrealistic expectation.
How useful is the information you get from the measure of any thing? That depends on what you chose measure in the first place, and that’s not always clear.
Linguistic clues show how people around the world first developed mathematical thought.
You may not know it, but the elementary math wars are raging. Our expert explains the ‘new math’ - why it works for kids, and how to do it.
Today’s news can often involve mind-bogglingly large numbers. A math professor shares some tricks for understanding it all.
High school students can blame ancient India for quadratic equations and calculus.
Why are there 60 minutes in an hour, and not 10? Why do we count up to 10, anyway? Quentin, age five, wants to know.
Let’s say you want the perfect mix of friends and strangers at your next party. Mathematicians have been working on a version of this problem for nearly a century, and the answer is complicated.
From the Amazon to Nicaragua, there are humans who never learn numbers. What can these anumeric cultures teach us about ourselves?
Australia’s Indigenous people had many methods for counting, and they didn’t use just numbers.
There is plenty of evidence to show Australia’s Indigenous people had ways of counting big numbers, yet the myth persists they couldn’t count more than a handful of things. Why?
On international Pi Day it’s time to look at Pi’s position in unique formula that’s praised much for its beauty in uniting several mathematical constants.
And it’s not all down to David Beckham…
Scientific advances – including the recent discovery of gravitational waves – force us to deal with numbers so extreme they’re virtually inconceivable.
Top contributors
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Professor of Mathematics and Natural Philosophy, Middlebury College
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Director, Center for Science Communication Research, University of Oregon
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Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Sociology, University of South Carolina
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Andrew Carnegie Fellow, Professor of Anthropology, University of Miami
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Professor of Elementary Mathematics, Queen's University, Ontario
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Professor of Mathematics, Western Michigan University
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Professor of Mathematical Biology and Public Engagement, University of Bath
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Senior lecturer, UNSW
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Associate Professor of Mathematics, College of the Holy Cross
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Professor of Mathematics, University of Florida
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Professor Emeritus of Mathematics, Western Michigan University
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Honorary Fellow, Space and Astronomy, CSIRO; Western Sydney University
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Professor of Mathematics, Harvey Mudd College
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Professor of Linguistics, Yale University
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Associate Scientist, Max Planck Institute for Human Development