Why do irrational numbers exist? originally appeared on Quora: the place to gain and share knowledge, empowering people to learn from others and better understand the world. Answer by Alon Amit, PhD ...

The ancient scholar Hippasus of Metapontum was punished with death for his discovery of irrational numbers—or at least that’s the legend. What actually happened in the fifth century B.C.E. is far from ...

When my students grow too dependent on their calculators, I ask them to find a number that, when multiplied by itself, gives them 2. Students quickly see that since 1² = 1 and 2² = 4, the answer has ...

This article is adapted from Shape: The Hidden Geometry of Information, Biology, Strategy, Democracy, and Everything Else by Jordan Ellenberg. © Penguin Press 2021 ...

Imagine being asked to pick a number from 1 to 10. You are quite likely to pick a whole number; I have never seen someone do otherwise. But you could also pick the number pi, whose decimal expansion ...