The nation's fourth and eighth graders scored higher in reading and mathematics than they did during their last national assessment, according to the federal government's latest annual statistical report on the well-being of the nation's children.

The mathematicians were trying to extend an illustrious result in their field, the Fundamental Theorem of Algebra. The astrophysicists were working on a fundamental problem in their field, the problem of gravitational lensing.

The ability to map numbers onto a line, a foundation of all mathematics, is universal, says a study published this week in the journal Science, but the form of this universal mapping is not linear but logarithmic.

Dutch researcher Alina Weffers-Albu has developed a method to calculate how a device can provide maximum functionality with a minimum quantity of processor and memory capacity. TVs, DVD players and mobile phones can malfunction when the inbuilt chips and software cease to cope with the increasingly large flow of data.

The connection between music and mathematics has fascinated scholars for centuries.

Dutch mathematician Anne Fey has investigated probability calculations in mathematical sandpile models. Although the rules of the model are simple, the wide-ranging behaviour that emerges from these is fascinating. Fey's research concerned various forms of self-organisation in these models.

Many people find complex math puzzling, including some mathematicians.

A new mathematical object has been discovered by Ce Bian, a maths student at the University of Bristol. The news caused great excitement when it was announced at a workshop organised by the American Institute of Mathematics (AIM) and attended by 25 of the world’s leading analytic number theorists.

A new mathematical object was revealed yesterday during a lecture at the American Institute of Mathematics (AIM). Two researchers from the University of Bristol exhibited the first example of a third degree transcendental L-function. These L-functions encode deep underlying connections between many different areas of mathematics.

This morning, the National Mathematics Advisory Panel called for schools to focus on several “critical foundations” or benchmarks for U.S. schoolchildren. These recommendations require that by the end of the seventh grade, students should be fluent with whole numbers and fractions, and proficient with geometry and measurements.

A problem which has defeated mathematicians for almost 140 years has been solved by a researcher at Imperial College London.

A problem which has defeated mathematicians for almost 140 years has been solved by a researcher at Imperial College London.