People are very good at moving in time to a beat. When you listen to your favourite song, you will probably find yourself nodding your head or tapping your foot along almost instinctively. And when you’re…
Manu Kapur, National Institute of Education of Singapore
The upcoming ban on the use of calculators in most maths exams for 11-year-olds in UK schools reminds me of a persistent concern in education: when do the tools we use to learn become crutches we can’t…
Sweaty-palmed and reciting facts over and over in their heads, the hordes of university and school students sitting down to exams this month will have precious little time to think about how their exam…
Adam Kucharski, London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine
Even in the face of death, Zeno of Elea knew how to frustrate people. Arrested for plotting against the tyrant Demylus, the ancient Greek philosopher refused to co-operate. The story goes that, rather…
Ever-envious of Singapore’s much-heralded success in teaching maths, politicians are keen to see its methodology arriving in UK classrooms. Education minister Elizabeth Truss explained some of the background…
That the Malaysian government, with the help of the UK’s INMARSAT, was able to dramatically narrow down the search area for flight MH370, made it seem much more likely that the wreckage of the plane might…
Chinese students begin learning their maths facts at a very early age: maths textbooks begin with multiplication in the first semester of second grade, when children are seven years old. In order to understand…
The number pi (π = 3.14159265358979323846…), unique among the pantheon of mathematical constants, captures the fascination of the public and professional mathematicians. Three years ago one of the authors…
It’s been said that in a city, you’re never more than two metres away from a rat. But it seems more likely that you’re never more than two metres from someone playing the puzzle game Candy Crush Saga…
Geoff Prince, Australian Mathematical Sciences Institute
AUSTRALIA 2025: How will science address the challenges of the future? In collaboration with Australia’s chief scientist Ian Chubb, we’re asking how each science discipline will contribute to Australia…
Education minister Elizabeth Truss has travelled to Shanghai to find out the secrets behind Chinese pupils’ mathematics success. I suspect she will find that it’s a cultural phenomenon, impossible to import…
There has been a lot of hand-wringing about mathematics lately. According to national and international testing we are not getting any better at it and plenty of good reasons have been offered for why…
Manu Kapur, National Institute of Education of Singapore
Learning from mistakes, errors, and failure seems intuitive and compelling. Everyone can relate to it. But if failure is a powerful learning mechanism, why do we wait for it to happen? Why can’t we design…
The work of the Greek polymath Plato has kept millions of people busy for millennia. A few among them have been mathematicians who have obsessed about Platonic solids, a class of geometric forms that are…
Our future in science, technology and engineering relies on a foundation and understanding of mathematics. And while it is pleasing to see a growth in interest in our advanced mathematics course at the…
Take a set of chess pieces and throw them all away except for one knight. Place the knight on any one of the 64 squares of a chess board. Can you make 63 legal moves so that you visit every square on the…
Adam Kucharski, London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine
Some numbers are both memorable and incorrect. Take the idea that we only use 10% of our brains. Despite there being no medical evidence for the remarkably low percentage, many still believe it. Part of…
Of the many tricks used by the world’s greatest military strategists, one usually works well – taking the enemy by surprise. It is an approach that goes back to the horse that brought down Troy. But surprise…
Students who are ill-prepared in mathematics are entering university and creating challenges for mathematics departments. There are lots of ideas out there on what to do about this but little evidence…