Editor’s Note: Published in 1957, this article comes from Martin Gardner’s legendary Scientific American column Mathematical Games. Read more in our special digital issue, Fun and Games. A paradox is ...

If two fair coins, a dime and a penny are flipped and you are told that the dime came up heads, then what is the likelihood that the penny comes up heads as well? Obviously 1/2. On the other hand, if ...

Hamilton's method is a natural and common method to distribute seats proportionally between states (or parties) in a parliament. In the USA it has been abandoned due to some drawbacks, in particular ...

We play a game, where I am the host and you are the player. As the host, I have two cards, and I write down a number on each card. The numbers are unequal. You can't see the numbers, and the object of ...

Could a monkey striking random keys, over infinite time, reproduce Shakespeare's work? The famous infinite monkey theorem now seems contradicted by the very limits of our Universe. A new study ...

How many people need to be in a room before there's a greater probability than chance that two of them share a birthday? Numberphile approaches the famous birthday paradox without a computer.

Building on two centuries' experience, Taylor & Francis has grown rapidly over the last two decades to become a leading international academic publisher. The Group publishes over 800 journals and over ...