Talk about a special mind.
There are 15 possible ways to cover a floor with pentagonal tiles
Who would have guessed tiling is so complex?
“Nothing” changed: ancient Indian text pushes the history of zero back 500 years
As far as modern tech and know-how is concerned, zero is the hero.
Laws of mathematics don’t apply here, says Australian PM
“The laws of mathematics are very commendable but the only law that applies in Australia is the law of Australia.”
How to Create Beautiful Images With Thousands of Circles
Art and science go hand in hand.
Mathematicians use their skills to find the perfect cup of coffee
It’s all in the grain size.
Struggling with math? You might have what scientists call a ‘math disability’
You now have a new excuse for failing math.
Using Mathematical Functions to Create Stunning Animations
Mathematics is a very powerful tool to create beautiful works of art.
Weapons of math destruction: plane delayed because university professor was writing equations
No matter how bad you are at math, you should be able to recognize an equation when you see it, right? Well, that wasn’t the case for a passenger on the plane from Philadelphia to Ontario. This passenger saw a saw a man “suspiciously” writing down a complicated looking formula on a piece of paper and notified cabin crew. She then said
If you’re left-handed, you may be a bit better at math
If you’re left-handed, some of the simplest and most mundane things can be an ordeal. Scissors are awful, musical instruments are a drag and house appliances can be quite challenging. But according to a new study, being a leftie is associated with better math skills, at least for teenage boys. The link between handedness was studied several times in the
Finally, a new pentagon shape that tiles in a plane
Both bathroom decorators and mathematicians have a reason to rejoice (how often does that happen?). Using a computer algorithm, a group of mathematicians at the University of Washington Bothell discovered the 15th kind of pentagon that can tile in a plane. The 14th was discovered in 1985 by mathematician Rolf Stein, while the previous five before were proven by Majorie Rice, a housewife from San Diego.
Is there really a mathematical formula that predicts happy relationships?
In a recent TED talk, Hannah Fry outlines a mathematical formula that predicts long-lasting relationships. In her recent book, The Mathematics of Love, she discusses the findings of psychologist John Gottman who studied hundreds of couples over many years to find out what sets apart the happy couples from the miserable. Gottman than enlisted the help of a mathematician who correlated all the data the psychologists gathered and came up with an empirical formula that seems to predict if a couple will be happy together.
Book Review: ‘Mathematics Without Apologies’
Mathematics is considered a problematic vocation, because, let’s face it, mathematicians can be weird. But that’s mostly because people don’t understand mathematics, let alone mathematicians which can be even more problematic. Why do (pure) mathematicians do what they do? Michael Harris, professor of mathematics at the Université Paris Diderot and Columbia University, offers a personal account of “Mathematics without apologies”.
If you fold an A4 sheet of paper 103 times its thickness will roughly be the size of the Universe
Whaaaat? It’s just a matter of math, really. Fold an A4 once and it will be twice as thick, fold it again and it will be four times as thick as it initially was. Turns out, according to Dr Karl Kruszelnicki, if you do this 103 times the sheet’s thickness will be larger than the observable Universe: 93 billion light-years. To do
Mathematician may have revolutionized the theory of numbers… but nobody understands his proof
Shinichi Mochizuki of Kyoto University, Japan claims he has proven the ABC conjecture, one of the longest standing mysteries of mathematics. However, even though his 500-page paper was published in 2012, no one has managed to understand it. Mochizuki says his fellow mathematicians are failing to get to grips with his work.
How one single sheepdog herds a flock of one hundred – mystery solved
Researchers at Swansea University, UK and Uppsala University in Sweden built a mathematical model that explains how one single sheepdog can round up herds made of up to 100 sheep. Their conclusion suggests that the dog needs only to follow two simple mathematical rules.
Iranian is the first woman to win prestigious math award
Maryam Mirzakhani, who was born and raised in Iran, has been awarded the highest honour a mathematician can attain: the Fields Medal. It’s one of those moments which will go down in history – for the first time in almos 80 years, a woman has won the Fields Medal (officially known as the International Medal for Outstanding Discoveries in Mathematics).
Monkeys can do math, study proves
It’s long been supposed that monkeys are capable of mental arithmetics, but it was only recently that this was proven for a fact by neuroscientists at the Margaret Livingstone of Harvard Medical School in Boston. The researchers taught three rhesus macaques to identify symbols representing the numbers zero to 25, then when given the choice between two panels, one depicting
The Formula that Could Destroy Chess Forever
Norway’s Magnus Carlsen and India’s Viswanathan Anand are duking it out in the world championship, apparently, without anyone else contesting their supremacy. But as insanely good as they are, they still can’t stand up to the best computers today. As a matter of fact, there is one theory which, if proven, could pretty much spoil chess forever. “Everyone agrees that
Cited paper suggesting a ‘ratio for a good life’ exposed as nonsense by amateur psychologist
A 52-year-old, part-time graduate student with no previous training in psychology and little training in math aside from high-school has discredited a very cited paper published in 2005 in American Psychologist. The paper, then written by Barbara Fredrickson and Marcial Losada suggested a mathematical ratio between positivity and happiness, claiming that humans thrive when ratio of positive to negative statements