Uncategorized

  1. Ecosystems

    Making Scents of Flowers

    Science gets the tools to start sniffing around the ecology of floral scent.

    By Susan Milius
  2. Math

    Taxicab Numbers

    Curious properties sometimes lurk within seemingly undistinguished numbers. Consider the story concerning Indian mathematician Srinivasa Ramanujan (1887–1920). His friend G.H. Hardy (1877–1947) once remarked that the taxi by which he had arrived had a “dull” number–1729, or 7 x 13 x 19. Ramanujan was quick to point out that 1729 is actually a “very interesting” […]

    By Ivars Peterson

  3. From the July 23, 1932, issue

    DROP OF OIL ATOMIZED INTO 100,000,000 PARTICLES A tiny drop of fuel oil no larger than the head of a safety match has been torn into 100,000,000 particles at the research laboratory of the General Electric Co.,