Dear James,

There weren’t calculators or computers in medieval Europe. But there were math duels.

Mathematicians would gather in public squares and pose tricky math problems to each other. Then they raced to solve them. Victors might win money, fame or a university job. (Sadly, this isn’t how I got my job.)

People still noodle on difficult math puzzles for work and fun today.

That’s what my friend Daryl DeFord told me. He’s a mathematician at Washington State University.

“That’s really what math is all about,” he said. “You find something that doesn’t quite make sense, and you keep poking at it until it … » More …

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