Math
We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.
- Math
Do subatomic particles have free will?
Math Trek: If we have free will, so do subatomic particles, mathematicians claim to prove.
- Math
Welcome to the Quantum Internet
Quantum encryption is here, but the laws of physics can do much more than protect privacy.
- Math
A Quasi-quasicrystal
Quasicrystals are bizarre, rare, mysterious materials blending mathematical order and irregularity. A new, unexpected material halfway between a regular crystal and a quasicrystal may help reveal their secrets.
- Math
A building of bubbles
Math Trek: The National Aquatics Center in Beijing, newly built for the Olympics, is a glowing cube of bubbles. The mathematics behind it are built around Lord Kelvin's tetrakaidecahedra and the physics of foam.
- Math
The Drunkard’s Walk: How Randomness Rules Our Lives
Leonard Mlodinow, Pantheon Books, 2008, 272 p., $24.95.
- Math
Scooping the political pollsters
Who will win the election in November? A technique from baseball stats may predict the answer.
- Math
Strategy to stop a pandemic
A limited supply of vaccine shots, if targeted well, could stop the spread of disease.
- Math
Optimizing leafy networks
Scientists reveal a mathematical principle underlying the arrangement of leaf veins in plant species.
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- Astronomy
Accidental astrophysicists
MATH TREK: The mathematicians thought they'd just extended a fundamental result in algebra, but it turns out that they'd also proven a conjecture in astrophysics.
- Physics
Life’s code in soap
The mathematics of soapy water yields some clues to the origin of the genetic code.
- Math
Gender equality closes math gap
Research shows that the greater the gender equality in a country, the more equal the math scores between boys and girls.
