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You might think that computers are the only things that run algorithms, but you're wrong. Here's a neat mental trick for calculating the day of the week for any day ever, developed by famous mathematician John H. Conway

Do you ever come across a math problem that you know is right but no matter how hard you try, you can't wrap your mind around it?

They say the pen is mightier than the sword, and authorities have often agreed. From outlawed religious tracts and revolutionary manifestos to censored and burned books, we know the potential power of words to overturn the social order. But as strange as it may seem, some numbers have also been considered dangerous enough to ban. Alessandra King details the history behind illegal numbers.

1, 11, 21, 1211, 111221. These are the first five elements of a number sequence. Can you figure out what comes next? Alex Gendler reveals the answer and explains how beyond just being a neat puzzle, this type of sequence has practical applications as well.

A statistical analysis of luck vs skill in sports.

Imagine a group of people. How big do you think the group would have to be before there's more than a 50% chance that two people in the group have the same birthday? The answer is ... probably lower than you think. David Knuffke explains how the birthday problem exposes our often-poor intuition when it comes to probability.

It's a good day to be a pirate. Amaro and his four mateys - Bart, Charlotte, Daniel, and Eliza have struck gold - a chest with 100 coins. But now, they must divvy up the booty according to the pirate code - and pirate code is notoriously complicated. Can you help come up with the distribution that Amaro should propose to make sure he lives to tell the tale? Alex Gendler shows how.

You and your team have crash-landed on an ancient planet. Can you appease the three alien overlords who rule it and get your team safely home? Created by logician Raymond Smullyan, and popularized by his colleague George Boolos, this riddle has been called the hardest logic puzzle ever. Alex Gendler shows how to solve it.

Your research team has found a prehistoric virus preserved in the permafrost and isolated it for study. After a late night working, you're just closing up the lab when a sudden earthquake hits and breaks all the sample vials. Will you be able to destroy the virus before the vents open and unleash a deadly airborne plague? Lisa Winer shows how.

Rubik's Cube world record-holder Collin Burns tells us how he did it.

Have you ever sat down to take a math test and immediately felt your heart beat faster and your palms start to sweat? This is called math anxiety, and if it happens to you, you're not alone: Researchers think about 20 percent of the population suffers from it. So what's going on? And can it be fixed? Orly Rubinsten explores the current research and suggests ways to increase math performance.

The meter is the world's ultimate measure, but how did it become "the" meter? What is this measurement based on? The story of this revolution in measurement traces its roots to the French Revolution. Scientists decided that an equal and united people should have equal and united measures. So they sent a pair of young astronomers out to measure the world, and invent the meter. Little did they know they'd find nothing but war, deception, and strife along the way. As a result of this ill-fated mission, the meter carries an error that still persists today. Still think the metric system is so perfect?

1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9... and 0. With just these ten symbols, we can write any rational number imaginable. But why these particular symbols? Why ten of them?

Have you ever sat in a doctor's office for hours, despite having an appointment?

You're the realm's greatest mathematician, but ever since you criticized the Emperor's tax laws, you've been locked in the dungeon.

Can you trust your gut feelings?

20 year old Mats Valk from the Netherlands has set a new record for completing Rubik's Cube.

Get the most out of pizza with some simple math!

In a dystopian world, your resistance group is humanity's last hope. Unfortunately, you've all been captured by the tyrannical rulers and brought to the ancient coliseum for their deadly entertainment.

Why can we find geometric shapes in the night sky? How can we know that at least two people in London have exactly the same number of hairs on their head?

85650789657397829 + 1402 more digits is an illegal number. To understand why this is, we need to learn a little bit of cryptology, a little bit of math, and a little bit of programming.