To make progress on one of number theory’s most elementary questions, two mathematicians turned to an unlikely source.

Many known languages, for example, have no words for numerals above 2 or 3. A linguist who curated a database of the world’s languages in 2015 estimated that of the 6,880 languages for which there are ...

Buddhism assigns profound meaning to certain numbers, linking them to prosperity and inner peace. Numbers like 8 (infinity), 9 (completion), 3 (harmony), 7 (spiritual growth), and 1 (new beginnings) ...