The Monthly publishes articles, as well as notes and other features, about mathematics and the profession. Its readers span a broad spectrum of mathematical interests, and include professional ...

Grade school math students are likely familiar with teachers admonishing them not to just guess the answer to a problem. But a new proof establishes that, in fact, the right kind of guessing is ...

Ordinary differential equations (ODEs) are also called initial value problems because a time zero value for each first-order differential equation is needed. The following is an example of a ...

Sometimes, it’s easy for a computer to predict the future. Simple phenomena, such as how sap flows down a tree trunk, are straightforward and can be captured in a few lines of code using what ...