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Math Lore

The stories behind the numbers.

π, e, i, √2, 0! and ∞ — the numbers that shaped mathematics and the people who found them. Visual proofs, real history, one idea per screen.

  • New video every Tuesday & Friday
  • A 60-second fact every day

3 videos·5 Shorts·4 series·8 stories

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Stories

All 8 stories →
3 min readThe Mutilated Chessboard Problem: Why 31 Dominoes Can't Cover 62 SquaresThe area matches exactly. The colors do not. A puzzle from a 1946 logic textbook shows how the right way of looking beats any amount of trial and error.6 min readWhy Is e = 2.718…? How Compound Interest Found the Number of GrowthNobody chose the number 2.718281828…; let growth feed on itself and it answers, in banks, in atoms, in luck and in a circle.3 min readHow Many Ways Can 4 Letters All Go in the Wrong Envelopes? The Story of DerangementsMost people guess the chance is below one third. Count the shuffles and every letter goes wrong more often than that, with e hiding in the answer.3 min readCompound Interest and the Number e: Why Your Balance Stops Near 2.718Split one year's interest into ever smaller payments and the money does not explode. It creeps up toward a single number, and Jacob Bernoulli found it first.6 min readWhat Is Pi, Really? Why π Is the Unit of Turning, Not Just 3.14Circumference over diameter is where π starts, not what it is. Follow it from Archimedes' polygons to half a turn, and to a sphere where the ratio fails.3 min readWhy the Square Root of 2 Broke the Pythagoreans: The Diagonal That Ended a ReligionA square with sides of 1 has a diagonal that no ratio of whole numbers can measure. That fact cut straight through a brotherhood that believed all is number.

Series

Playlists, in the order they are meant to be watched.

Puzzle Vault playlist2 videosPuzzle VaultNumber Files playlist1 videoNumber Files60-Second Math playlist1 video60-Second MathSpecial Numbers — start here playlist3 videosSpecial Numbers — start here

Videos

Every full story, newest first.

Shorts

One idea, under a minute.

More from the Lores

Physics LoreThe story behind every law of nature.→Chemistry LoreThe stories inside the elements.→
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