Math
We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.
- Math
Tied Up in Knots
Physicists have shown that tumbled strings will form surprisingly complex knots, helping explain how knots spontaneously form in nature.
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- Math
Mathematical Police Find Security Bug
Cryptographers uncover potential weakness in encryption algorithms.
- Math
A Video That’s Worth a Million Words
Award-winning video reveals the simplicity and beauty of an abstract mathematical tool.
- Math
Net advantage
When damaged, networks that seem resilient can still become inefficient to the point of being unusable.
- Math
A Video That’s Worth a Million Words
Award-winning video reveals the simplicity and beauty of an abstract mathematical tool.
- Math
Good Stories, Good Math
Young children who show sophisticated story-telling skills go on to demonstrate greater mathematical ability.
- Math
Numbers, by Any Other Name
Most Westerners have come to represent numbers with Hindu-Arabic characters. But many cultures don’t—and historically, a whole range of alternatives have been used. View many at this site, which was developed by Archimedes’ Laboratory, a group that specializes in creating puzzles and brain teasers. Go to: http://www.archimedes-lab.org/numeral.html
- Math
Math on Fire
A supercomputer model fed by real-time data is beginning to make sense of the seemingly unpredictable movement of wildfires.
- Math
Mathematical Fortune-Telling
A researcher uses game theory to predict the outcome of political and business challenges, including the current dispute with Iran over nuclear technology.
- Math
A Tangled Tale
A piece of string tumbled over and over quickly develops knots, explaining why your headphone cords are always in a tangle.
- Math
A Prayer for Archimedes
A long-lost work by Archimedes shows his subtle grasp of the notion of infinity, and how close he was to developing calculus.
