Mathematics is not just a school subject, but a universal language that helps us understand the world. Discover its meaning and test your knowledge with a simple puzzle that will test your logic.

We often associate our knowledge of maths with the school desk and the endless examples we puzzled over. But in reality, maths is much more than just a set of equations and numbers – it’s the language we use to describe the world around us. And that’s why it has played, and continues to play, a key role in the discovery of the laws of nature.

The revolution of Newton and Leibniz

The big breakthrough came in the 17th century, when Isaac Newton and Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz independently established the foundations of differential and integral calculus. This approach opened the way to understanding motion and change – phenomena that had previously been difficult for mathematics to grasp. Until then, it had focused more on the static elements: measurement, counting and the description of shapes. The new method made mathematics a tool for exploring the planet, the universe and everyday processes.

Mathematics in practice

Mathematics made it possible to describe the fall of bodies, explain the principles of mechanics, the flow of liquids and the behaviour of gases. It has also given rise to definitions of physical phenomena such as electricity and magnetism, and helped us understand more complex areas, from plant growth to the spread of epidemics to economic fluctuations.

Try the puzzle

Today you can try a puzzle that even very clever people have puzzled over.

Solve this example. ━━ Solve this example. ( Source: AI - chatGPT )

Did you not get the right result? Let’s look at it together.

Remember that multiplication takes precedence over addition. So first we calculate 1 × 0 = 0. The equation simplifies to 1 + 0 + 1, which gives the obvious result of 2. Simple, perhaps, but this case shows that even seemingly simple examples require proper procedure.