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In later antiquity and the middle ages, a ‘circular number’ was one that reappeared in its own powers: 5 and 6 were circular number since their powers (25, 125, 625, ...; 36, 216, 1296, ...) always end in 5 or 6.

In later antiquity and the middle ages, a ‘circular number’ was one that reappeared in its own powers: 5 and 6 were circular number since their powers (25, 125, 625, ...; 36, 216, 1296, ...) always end in 5 or 6.

Max Dehn (1878–1952) said that Archimedes’ (c. 287–212 BCE) discovery that the surface area of a sphere was four times its great circle was the one of the most beautiful results of Greek mathematics.

The ‘Conics’ of Apollonius of Perga (c. 260–c. 190 BCE) became the standard text for ‘conic sections’

February has $28$ days, and $28$ is the second perfect number, so let’s start there.

For each day of February 2026, I intend to post here and on Mastodon a short interesting story/image/fact/anecdote related to the aesthetics of mathematics. This is an index of the posts:

A correspondent with a bookbinding hobby emailed to say that they had printed and hand-bound the entire work.

For the Mathober 2025 day 1 prompt ‘Link’, an image based on a geometrical mosaic from the Alhambra.