Column
- Math
Highway Relativity
There may be more to zipping along in the fast lane than meets the casual eye. Freeway drivers often sense that cars in an adjacent lane are moving faster than those in their own lane. That’s certainly true when the average speed of the cars in the next lane is significantly higher than that of […]
- Math
Scrabble’s Random Letters
In the popular SCRABBLE Brand Crossword Game, players create words from letters selected at random from a stockpile of 100 tiles. The tiles are laid down on a board 15 squares high by 15 squares wide to form an interlocking, crossword arrangement. Each letter of the alphabet has a particular value and the number of […]
- Math
Scrabble’s Random Letters
In the popular SCRABBLE Brand Crossword Game, players create words from letters selected at random from a stockpile of 100 tiles. The tiles are laid down on a board 15 squares high by 15 squares wide to form an interlocking, crossword arrangement. Each letter of the alphabet has a particular value and the number of […]
- Math
Ice Cream Wars
A visit to the supermarket can present a shopper with a bewildering array of choices. For ice cream alone, the consumer faces a variety of brands, flavors, container sizes, and types (fat-free versus low-fat versus premium, and so on). At the same time, deciding which items to stock is a formidable problem for retailers. They […]
- Math
A Snowy Twist
Carving a massive block of packed snow into an elegant sculpture presents all sorts of challenges. It’s even tougher when the goal is an intricate mathematical shape with a gravity-defying heart. A Twist in Time. Photo by Stan Wagon Eltanin by Bathsheba Grossman. On display at the northeast corner of 33rd and Walnut St., University […]
- Math
Algebraic Hearts
One of the marvels of mathematics is the way in which an austere equation can unexpectedly blossom into an appealing geometric shape when represented graphically. Cardioid. Picture of an algebraic heart. Gabriel Taubin A heart surface colored according to Gaussian curvature (left) and direction (right). Michael Trott/Wolfram Research A heart-y prime puzzle. Ed Pegg Jr. […]
- Math
Euler’s Homework
Even the best and most prolific of mathematicians have had to do homework assignments. Famed Swiss mathematician Leonhard Euler (1707–1783) was no exception. Euler was only 14 years old when he was sent to the University of Basel in 1720 to study for the ministry. Not long after his arrival, he got himself introduced to […]
- Math
Sampling for Superclarity
An audio compact disc (CD) holds up to 74 minutes, 33 seconds of music, just enough for a complete recording of Ludwig van Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony on one disc. Each second of music is stored as a string of about 1.5 million bits, represented as tiny, narrow pits on the disc’s surface. These pits range […]
- Math
Computers by the Trillions
The notion of using molecules as the working elements of a computer goes back several decades. It wasn’t until 1994, however, that anyone actually stepped into a laboratory and succeeded in solving a computational problem in a test tube. That was when computer scientist Leonard M. Adleman of the University of Southern California, using techniques […]
- Math
How Far Away?
As you look around, you constantly make decisions about how far away something is–whether it’s a dog sniffing at a nearby tree or a friend down the street. If you were a surveyor, you could measure angles and then use high-school trigonometry to calculate distances. That’s great for drawing a map or establishing property lines, […]
- Math
How Far Away?
As you look around, you constantly make decisions about how far away something is–whether it’s a dog sniffing at a nearby tree or a friend down the street. If you were a surveyor, you could measure angles and then use high-school trigonometry to calculate distances. That’s great for drawing a map or establishing property lines, […]
- Math
Guessing Cards
Card-guessing tricks give a magician the opportunity to show off his or her mind-reading prowess. In many cases, the illusion of mind reading arises not from sleight of hand but as a consequence of some mathematical principle. One of the most startling of such prediction tricks is known as the Kruskal count, named for Rutgers […]
