Math
We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.
- Math
Communities of Communities of …
A new approach to network theory focusing on the subcommunities within networks may shed light on everything from food webs to terrorist cells. It may even act as an oracle, helping scientists identify connections within a network they haven’t yet seen.
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The squint method of data analysis
Mathematicians discover a Klein bottle hidden within the data underlying photographs
- Math
BOOK LIST | Guesstimation: Solving the World’s Problems on the Back of a Cocktail Napkin
Learn to use simple arithmetic to approximate anything. Princeton Univ. Press, 2008, 300 p. $19.95 GUESSTIMATION
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Sensitivity to the harmony of things
The work of Alexandre Grothendieck has transformed math the way the Internet has transformed communication: Once you’re used to it, you can’t imagine what life was like before it.
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Less is more
Researchers have shown that a grip that’s too tight can be counterproductive, especially on a microscopic object — but the findings could apply to fields ranging from ecology to sociology.
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Still debating with Plato
Mathematicians debate whether mathematical truths are discovered or invented.
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The Noisy Game of Baseball
Predicting a baseball player's future batting average (and many other things) is not as simple as relying on past performance, mathematicians say.
- Math
Creeping Up on Riemann
Theorists find the first example of an elusive complex function that just may help them solve the biggest problem in mathematics.
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Humanitarian Statistics
From Iraq to Sierra Leone to New Orleans, statistical tools help guide responses to human rights crises.
- Math
Sacred Geometry
Beginning in the 17th century, the Japanese adorned temples with beautiful wooden tablets that depicted mathematical questions and theorems, apparently as offerings to the gods.
