Using a relatively young theory, a team of mathematicians has started to answer questions whose roots lie at the very ...

Binary, or base two, is the number system that computer systems use, as opposed to the decimal, or base ten, system used in our day-to-day lives. Binary is generally associated with high technology ...

Before the 13th century Europeans used Roman numerals to do arithmetic. Leonardo of Pisa, better known today as Fibonacci, is largely responsible for the adoption of the Hindu–Arabic numeral system in ...

For a number that represents nothing at all, zero is everywhere. The universe itself is believed to have begun from zero. It's at the bottom of the countdown, the middle of the number line, and at the ...

Number theorist Peter Scholze, who became Germany’s youngest ever full professor aged 24, and geometrician Caucher Birkar—a Kurdish refugee—are among the winners of this year’s Fields Medals, the most ...

Though people have always understood the concept of nothing or having nothing, the concept of zero is relatively new; it fully developed in India around the fifth century A.D., perhaps a couple of ...

There was a time when a zig-zagging line didn't mean two, and a circle didn't mean zero. NPR's Eric Westervelt talks with Amir Aczel about the origins of our numbers and his book, Finding Zero. So ...