The determinant has a very natural visual intuition, even though it's formula can make it seem more complicated than it really is.

A short explanation of why Bayes' theorem is true, together with discussion on a common misconception in probability

Today we're going to talk about a fundamental part of all modern computers. The thing that basically everything else uses - the Arithmetic and Logic Unit (or the ALU). The ALU may not have the most exciting name, but it is the...

The evil wizard MoldeVort has been trying to kill you for years, and today it looks like he’s going to succeed. But your friends are on their way, and if you can survive until they arrive, they should be able to help stop him. Can you...

A beautiful proof of why slicing a cone gives an ellipse.

In this video Paul Andersen explains the importance of standard deviation. He starts with a discussion of normal distribution and how the standard deviation measures the average distance from the mean, or the "spread" of data. He then...

You're the chief advisor to an eccentric king who needs to declare his successor. He wants his heir to be good at arithmetic, lucky, and above all else, honest. So he's devised a competition to test his children, and ordered you to...

Moser's circle problem. What is this pattern: 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 31,...

Heavy water, or deuterium oxide, has some important scientific applications, but let's say you're reeeeaallly thirsty... is it safe to drink?

Paul Andersen shows you how to calculate the standard error of a data set. He starts by explaining the purpose of standard error in representing the precision of the data. The standard error is based on the standard deviation and the...

Meet Lucy. She was a math major in college, and aced all her courses in probability and statistics. Which do you think is more likely: that Lucy is a portrait artist, or that Lucy is a portrait artist who also plays poker? How do we know...

After many adventures in Wonderland, Alice has once again found herself in the court of the temperamental Queen of Hearts. She's about to pass through the garden undetected, when she overhears the king and queen arguing that 64 is the...

Before you take your relationship with space to a new level by getting a telescope, find out what you really need to make the most of your summer nights staring at the sky.

A shooting star crashes onto Earth and a hideous blob emerges. It creeps and leaps, it glides and slides. It's also unstoppable: no matter what you throw at it, it just re-grows and continues its rampage. The only way to save the planet...

The equator is a clear and accurate line around Earth that makes measuring latitude a precise science, but when it came to figuring out how to do that with longitude, British sailors were at a loss. Until they devised a competition.

In this episode we explain how physicists can tease information out of infinity.

Algorithms are the sets of steps necessary to complete computation - they are at the heart of what our devices actually do. And this isn’t a new concept. Since the development of math itself algorithms have been needed to help us...

Paul Andersen shows you how to use the rules of multiplication and addition to correctly solve genetics problems. The rule of multiplication can be applied to independent events in sequence. The rule of addition can be applied to...

Hank introduces us to the most beautiful numbers in nature - the Fibonacci sequence.

So it's February 29th and we have 366 days this year instead of 365- what's the deal with Leap Years?

You'd have a hard time finding the medieval city K_nigsberg on any modern maps, but one particular quirk in its geography has made it one of the most famous cities in mathematics. Dan Van der Vieren explains how grappling with...

How good are you with money? What about reading people's emotions? How healthy are you, compared to other people you know? Knowing how our skills stack up against others is useful in many ways. But psychological research suggests that...

This is episode 9 of our animated series "Think Like A Coder." This 10-episode narrative follows a girl, Ethic, and her robot companion, Hedge, as they attempt to save the world. The two embark on a quest to collect three artifacts and...

Adam Savage walks through two spectacular examples of profound scientific discoveries that came from simple, creative methods anyone could have followed -- Eratosthenes' calculation of the Earth's circumference around 200 BC and...