Every December 8 for years, Julia Robinson blew out the candles on her birthday cake and made the same wish: that someday she would know the answer to Hilbert’s 10th problem. Though she worked on the ...

The world of mathematics is full of unreachable corners, where unsolvable problems live. Now, yet another has been exposed. In 1900, the eminent mathematician David Hilbert announced a list of 23 key ...

Cheng (How to Bake π), a scientist in residence at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and honorary fellow at Sheffield University, tackles some difficult concepts in this superb study of the ...