The quadratic equation has frustrated math students for millenniums. But a math professor at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh may have come up with a better way of solving it.

For example, consider this equation: 3x 2 -18x+9=0 It will have the same roots as the first one because if you divide both sides by 3, you get the first equation.

Many former algebra students have painful memories of struggling to memorize the quadratic formula. A new way to derive it, overlooked for 4,000 years, is so simple it eliminates the need.

A letter written by Albert Einstein in which he writes out his famous E=mc2 equation has sold at auction for more than $1.2 million, about three times more than it was expected to get.