Imagine that your focused mind is like your right hand, and your unfocused mind is like your left. You'll get more done by using both. And it lightens cognitive load. Using only focused effort is like ...

Alan Veliz-Cuba has received funding from the Simons Foundation and the American Mathematical Society for some of his research. You can probably think of a time when you’ve used math to solve an ...

A game of chess requires its players to think several moves ahead, a skill that computer programs have mastered over the years. Back in 1996, an IBM supercomputer famously beat the then world chess ...

The employment future looks bright for people with strong math skills. But among the nation’s K-12 students, that represents a small and dwindling demographic. What’s to blame for students’ poor math ...

Researchers have developed an artificially intelligent system that does the exact opposite of living in the moment. But it doesn’t just think a few steps ahead—it thinks millions of steps ahead. A ...

Artificial intelligence can write a résumé, answer medical questions, and even have philosophical conversations. But one task it’s not always so good at is solving math problems—and that poses a ...

Back in engineering school, I had a professor who used to glory in the misleading assignment. He would ask questions containing elements of dubious relevance to the topic at hand in the hopes that it ...