THE mathematicians’ version of nothing is the empty set. This is a collection that doesn’t actually contain anything, such as my own collection of vintage Rolls-Royces. The empty set may seem a bit ...

Last winter, at a meeting in the Finnish wilderness high above the Arctic Circle, a group of mathematicians gathered to contemplate the fate of a mathematical universe. It was minus 20 degrees Celsius ...

A while ago, I got interested in mathematics, mostly because I had done so poorly at it in school. I’m being coy. I didn’t do poorly; I pretty much failed. I only passed by cheating. Anyway, I bought ...