Exactly. I think it’s a really important idea, especially for math-anxious parents. Photo: Child works on the types of patterns Rittle-Johnson studies. Courtesy Bethany Rittle-Johnson.

Apple automatically performs math and offers suggested results in Messages for iPhone and iPad when you type in patterns it recognizes, such as formulas and units, after you type = (equals sign).

A randomized mathematical process may help explain how certain thin filaments, called secondary veins, form these complex patterns, a new study finds. Insect wings consist of two types of veins ...

Some patterns persist even longer. For the second integral, J n, the first 56 terms of the sequence (obtained by substituting the numbers 1 through 56 for n) are all π/2.But the 57 th term is ...