All Stories by Ivars Peterson
- Computing
‘Love bug’ lessons
In early May, the malicious ILOVEYOU computer virus shut down hundreds of thousands of computers and caused several billion dollars in damage.
- Computing
Software’s beginnings
The earliest known use of the term software to describe computer programs dates back to 1958.
- Math
Changes of Mathematical State
Untangling a web of conflicting demands can be tough on computers.
- Math
Spinning to a rolling stop
Air viscosity makes the rolling speed of a spinning, tipping coin go up as its energy goes down until the coin suddenly stops.
- Math
Traffic woes of the single driver
At moderate traffic volumes, a single car moving at randomly fluctuating speeds can cause traffic jams in its wake.
- Math
Whirling to a chaotic finale
A black hole paired with another body can succumb to chaos when they orbit each other, making it more difficult to detect gravitational waves produced by such objects.
- Physics
Writing with warm atoms
Researchers demonstrated that they can use a scanning tunneling microscope to position atoms in microscopic patterns at room temperature.
- Physics
Ring around the proton
An orbiting electron accelerated to relativistic velocities by a laser in a strong magnetic field can behave like a ring-shaped electron cloud spinning around the nucleus.
- Earth
Impurities clock crystal growth rates
A novel method for measuring tiny amounts of hydrogen-containing impurities allows researchers to determine growth rates along different directions in a quartz crystal.
- Math
Orbiting in a figure-eight loop
Three gravitationally interacting bodies of equal mass can, according to precise calculations, trace out a figure-eight-shape orbit in space.
- Math
Random packing of spheres
A new definition of random packing allows a more consistent and mathematically precise approach to characterizing disordered arrangements of identical spheres.
- Math
Great Computations
From sifting through radio telescope signals for signs of extraterrestrial life to searching for record-breaking prime numbers, home and office computers contribute via the Internet to a variety of research efforts.
