-
Recent Posts
- A song for Pi Day
- EMS Popular Lecture: Maths and Sport
- Maths makes your brain light up… but why?
- RSS event: statistics and the referendum
- Two forthcoming IMA seminars
- Wit and heuristics in crosswords and mathematics
- Chain reaction forces
- RSS seminar: statistics making an impact
- Quotation for the new year
- Links: more on the mathematics of music
-
Join 38 other subscribers
Archives
- March 2014
- February 2014
- January 2014
- November 2013
- October 2013
- September 2013
- August 2013
- July 2013
- June 2013
- April 2013
- March 2013
- February 2013
- December 2012
- November 2012
- October 2012
- September 2012
- August 2012
- July 2012
- June 2012
- May 2012
- April 2012
- March 2012
- February 2012
- January 2012
- December 2011
- November 2011
- October 2011
- September 2011
Categories
Maths news and articles
Societies
Reference
Meta
Monthly Archives: January 2012
Quotation for the week: Hilbert
David Hilbert was one of the acknowledged leaders of mathematics in the early 20th century. He’s often associated with the movement to formalise all mathematics on strictly logical principles, so it’s interesting to find him taking a broader perspective: In … Continue reading
Posted in Quotations
Leave a comment
All in the air at once
This is a reminder that the Edinburgh Mathematical Society’s annual Popular Lecture will be held in Edinburgh on the afternoon of Friday 17 February 2012. It will be given by Dr Colin Wright, who specialises in the mathematics of juggling. … Continue reading
Posted in Events
Leave a comment
Not waving but gliding
Those of you with an interest in fluid mechanics (and especially those who enjoyed MA415: Waves this year) may be interested to hear about a project to fly gliders to record altitudes by using the lee waves formed downwind of … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Leave a comment
Solution to the Russian exam problem
Recall this Russian entrance exam problem… Let be real numbers. If you set equal to any of the numbers , or in the equation , then at least one of the other two numbers will be a root of the … Continue reading
Posted in Puzzles
Leave a comment
Simple to state and hard to solve…
Probably the most widely publicised mathematical result of the last few decades was Andrew Wiles’s proof of Fermat’s Last Theorem. What Wiles in fact proved was a far more significant result from which Fermat’s theorem follows, but what caught the … Continue reading
Quotation for the week: Hildebrand
The chemist and educator Joel Henry Hildebrand was not a mathematician, but this plaintive little limerick may strike a chord with both teachers and students, especially as the new term gets under way. A child of the new generation Refused … Continue reading
Posted in Quotations
Leave a comment
Those two fun fallacies exploded
Here’s how to resolve the two fallacies we presented back in December… 1. The problem of the missing pound is interesting in that there is no problem! Consider: suppose the price of the room were £10. The three men paid … Continue reading
Posted in Puzzles
Leave a comment
Paul Erdős (1913-1996): “My brain is open”
Coming to the letter E, it is perverse not to write about Leonhard Euler (1707–1783), one of mathematics’ perennial greats. But then Euler did not travel with his mother and sister in tow, did he, so Paul Erdős wins hands … Continue reading
Posted in A mathematical abecedary
2 Comments
Quotation for the week: Dirac
Paul Dirac, one of the greatest mathematical physicists of the last century, is a good person to have on your side when you’re arguing with your experimentalist colleagues: I think there is a moral to this story, namely that it … Continue reading
Posted in Quotations
Leave a comment
Sudoku: no sweet sixteen
A sudoku with seventeen clues Might still be worthwhile to peruse; But with only sixteen, As they’ve proved by machine, It can never do more than bemuse. In the last couple of weeks, a team led by Prof. Gary McGuire … Continue reading
Posted in Articles
Leave a comment
Degree of Freedom 