The use of the letter x as a mathematical unknown is a relatively modern convention. Algebra has been around for a lot longer. Daryl Benson/Stockbyte via Getty Images You might be most familiar with x ...

Imagine winding the hour hand of a clock back from 3 o’clock to noon. Mathematicians have long known how to describe this rotation as a simple multiplication: A number representing the initial ...

A 9th-century Persian scholar, Muhammad ibn Musa al-Khwarizmi, revolutionized mathematics by introducing systematic methods for solving equations, laying the groundwork for algebra. His name gave rise ...