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  1. Math

    Zeroing In on Catalan’s Conjecture

    Fermat’s last theorem is just one of many examples of innocent-looking problems that can long stymie even the most astute mathematicians. It took about 350 years to prove Fermat’s scribbled conjecture, for instance. Now, Preda Mihailescu of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich has proved a theorem that is likely to lead to […]

    By Ivars Peterson
  2. Math

    Square of the Hypotenuse

    There’s a delightful mathematical moment in the movie Merry Andrew, when Danny Kaye, playing schoolmaster Andrew Larabee, breaks into song to teach the Pythagorean theorem. I was reminded of this scene by a sentence in an article about the Pythagorean theorem in the October issue of Mathematics Magazine.