A year after he started his Ph.D. in mathematics at McGill University, Matt Bowen had a problem. “I took my qualifying exams and did absolutely horribly on them,” he said. Bowen was sure that his ...

In my previous column I looked at the role of investigations and the recognition of patterns in helping children to learn mathematics in general and their multiplication tables in particular. I made ...

Some mathematical patterns are so subtle you could search for a lifetime and never find them. Others are so common that they seem impossible to avoid. A new proof by Sarah Peluse of the University of ...