This weekend, the Franklin Institute opens its summer exhibition about mathematical patterns that recur in nature. Its centerpiece is a 1,700-square-foot maze of mirrors, set in a grid of equilateral ...

Scientists mapping the human body at the cellular level keep running into the same surprise: beneath the apparent chaos of tissues and organs, there is a hidden order that looks a lot like pure ...

People decide to take trips for a dauntingly complex mix of reasons, but out of the individual chaos of dry-cleaning pick-ups, pizza dinners, and European vacations, a new mathematical model has ...

The world's oldest known botanical art, from the Halafian culture of northern Mesopotamia around 6000 BCE, hides fascinating cultural shifts in its seemingly simple motifs, a new study reveals. The ...

Images of plants painted on pottery made up to 8,000 years ago may be the earliest example of humans’ mathematical thought, a ...

Flower designs on 8,000-year-old Mesopotamian pots reveal a “mathematical knowledge” perhaps developed to share land and crops, archaeologists say.

Frank A. Farris does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond ...