While American children once learned to add by reading a poster of animals and birds, they do it now by playing games on computers. Each step in between—whether it be a box of blocks or exercises ...

THE HISTORY Of computers is often told as a history of objects, from the abacus to the Babbage engine up through the code-breaking machines of World War II. In fact, it is better understood as a ...

In mathematics, no researcher works in true isolation. Even those who work alone use the theorems and methods of their colleagues and predecessors to develop new ideas. But when a known technique is ...

This article was published in Scientific American’s former blog network and reflects the views of the author, not necessarily those of Scientific American Whenever an impressive new technology comes ...

In 1886 the mathematician Leopold Kronecker famously said, “God Himself made the whole numbers — everything else is the work of men.” Indeed, mathematicians have introduced new sets of numbers besides ...

Growth and change in technology have brought a boom in the availability of data and the need for people to shape technologies. Growing areas like machine learning require expertise in programming, ...