Sixth graders Zoe and Amoni, right, work together during Kelly Woodfin’s advanced math class in Union Public Schools. The Tulsa-area school district for about a decade has tried to increase enrollment ...

In the third century BCE, Apollonius of Perga asked how many circles one could draw that would touch three given circles at exactly one point each. It would take 1,800 years to prove the answer: eight ...

How to safely reopen offices, schools and other public spaces while keeping people six feet apart comes down to a question mathematicians have been studying for centuries. Sphere packing might seem ...