Taxicab Numbers Every positive integer was one of his personal friends. — G.H. Hardy In 1913, a mathematical prodigy from India, named Srinivasa Ramanujan, started to mail formulae and conjectures to British mathematicians. Ramanujan had largely self-taught himself numbers, as he surpassed all possible educational opportunities at a young age. By 11, two university students who …
Chladni Plates by Deborah Stout I recently watched The Rings of Power, the prequel series to The Lord of the Rings. As the first episode fired up, the opening sequence rolled and I saw something that was only recently familiar to me. A still from the opening credits of The Rings of Power For the last several …
The Countess of Lovelace The Hallowed Halls of Woman Crush Wednesday today garner a new occupant, in the form of one of history’s intriguing confluences of art and science. Few genealogies intersect in a more intriguing way than that of Ada Lovelace, an English mathematician revered by computer programmers. Born on 10 December 1815 in …
Pi Day Much of the world at large renders dates with a method that appears alien to many Americans: DD/MM/YY. This approach avoids many ambiguities and, if we’re being honest, is most likely the superior technique. At least one indisputable data point in the date format wars, however, falls squarely in favor of the MM/DD/YY …
The Coastline Paradox What country has the longest coastline in the world? If you answered Canada, peel off a gold star and stick it to your shirt. Great work! OK, now what country has the second-longest coastline? Russia? The United States? Australia? Maybe you figure the question is a trick and answered something along the …