The symbols we use every day have fascinating and surprisingly recent origins, explains author Joseph Mazur in his new book A few years ago friends and I were talking about the origins of written ...

Dunning explores how mathematical notation is a social, world-building technology. It’s natural to think of math as being ...

Mazur (Euclid in the Rainforest) gives readers the fascinating history behind the mathematical symbols we use, and completely take for granted, every day. Mathematical notation turns numbers into ...

THE work before us constitutes an important contribution to the history of mathematics. The development of mathematical notation is a fascinating subject in itself; but, the literature being so vast ...

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 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 ...

STONE RIDGE >> “Writing the History of Mathematical Notation: 1483-1700 (Docent Press, 2015),” coedited by Douglas Furman, an associate professor of mathematics, coordinator of the Math Collegian ...

Before the 16th century, most math equations were written as metered verse. Thank god for graphic-design-inclined mathematicians.

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, ...