An atlas of mathematics
Who knew what, when
Four thousand years of mathematics, drawn five ways on one clock. Move across any strip and every other strip jumps to the same year.
Where the symbols came from
Almost every sign in a line of mathematics is younger than the printing press. Drag the year back and famous formulas swell into sentences.
What the words meant
For Euclid, 1 was not a number. For Euler, a V drawn without lifting the pen was discontinuous. Pick a year and read the dictionary as it stood then.
4,000 years of π
It took 1,700 years to get π from 2 decimal places to 16, and 76 years to get it from 2,037 to 300 trillion. Your browser can join the race.
Lives of mathematicians
Galois's whole life, 1811 to 1832, fits inside Gauss's. 218 lives from Thales on, and who actually met whom.
The map
450 ideas, each at the year it appeared and wired to what it builds on. Pick one and trace everything it stands on. Start with any dot here.
For the specialists
Every family on one periodic table, the 26 sporadic groups, and the Monster at 8 × 1053 elements.
Platonic, Archimedean and Catalan solids, each grown in your browser by cutting, twisting or dualising a Platonic one.