Dunning explores how mathematical notation is a social, world-building technology. It’s natural to think of math as being fundamentally abstract. Whether it’s invented or discovered, its truths are so ...

Diagram 1: This diagram shows all squares on the chessboard identified by their coordinates. You would notice along the sides of the board there are letters and numbers. They are used to identify ...

The symbols we use every day have fascinating and surprisingly recent origins, explains author Joseph Mazur in his new book A few years ago friends and I were talking about the origins of written ...

Algebraic notation is the standard way chess players record their moves. By Isaac Aronow The standard method of recording moves in a chess game is known as algebraic notation. The name isn’t quite ...

Galileo once famously described the universe as a great book “written in mathematical language and its characters are triangles, circles, and other geometrical figures.” Unfortunately, it’s a language ...

Algebra uses letters to represent unknown values. Unknown values are commonly represented by the letters x and y. There are several principles you need to know to be able to use algebraic notation.

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WITH reference to Mr. Davison's letter in NATURE (vol. xxxiv. p. 571), I wish to point out that the subject of algebraic notation, not only for kinship, but for kinship and affinity, has been pretty ...