The Babylonians used separate combinations of two symbols to represent every single number from 1 to 59. That sounds pretty confusing, doesn’t it? Our decimal system seems simple by comparison, with ...

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Receive emails about upcoming NOVA programs and related content, as well as featured reporting about current events through a science lens. They find that the former Mangarevans combined base-10 ...

The natives of a remote Polynesian Island invented a binary number system, similar to the one used by computers to calculate, centuries before Western mathematicians did, new research suggests. The ...

Binary is a number system that only uses two digits, \(0\) and \(1\). It was invented by German mathematician Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz. Binary code is used widely in computer programming, so it is ...

M33 X-7 contains a massive black hole orbiting a large star in a surprisingly close orbit. The star is dimmer than expected due to its rapid mass gain and viewing angle. A new model explains the ...

Last October, astronomers spotted the first known visitor from another star system as it zoomed through the inner solar system at breakneck speeds. The interstellar interloper, since named ‘Oumuamua ...