If you buy something using links in our stories, we may earn a commission. This helps support our journalism. Learn more. Please also consider subscribing to WIRED His only option, he decided, was to ...

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 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 ...

Before the 16th century, most math equations were written as metered verse. Thank god for graphic-design-inclined mathematicians. The study of mathematics has existed since ancient times.

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 ...