Mathematics

Maths From An Extra Terrestrial Civilization- What Could It Be Like- And Would We Understand It?

It's often said that if we do make contact with Extra Terrestrials (ETs), e.g. detect a radio transmission from a distant galaxy through SETI, that maths would be one of the few things we would have in common with them. But- how similar would their m ...

Article - Robert Walker - Nov 16 2015 - 9:27am

The Math Of Cancer: Traveling Waves Model Tumor Invasion

Cell migration, which is involved in wound healing, cancer and tumor growth, and embryonic growth and development, has been a topic of interest to mathematicians and biologists for decades.  ...

Article - News Staff - Jun 25 2014 - 8:30pm

Can You Do Square Roots By Heart?

When I was five years old I used to be sort of an attraction to relatives. One of my mother's brothers is an engineer, and he was amazed by my ability to do complex calculations by heart. But to me it was only amusing to observe their amazement for wh ...

Article - Tommaso Dorigo - Jun 26 2014 - 2:26pm

Jacobi Iterative Method: 19th Century Math Gets A 21st Century Makeover

The Jacobi iterative method, a 169-year-old math strategy, may soon get a new lease on life. ...

Article - News Staff - Jun 30 2014 - 2:11pm

An Internet of Smells, Sounds, and Sensations

Reading Robert Walker's article on what extraterrestrial mathematics might look like has the wheels in my head a'turning.  We live in a digital civilization, one that specifically evolved toward a binary representation of a decimal-based mathemat ...

Blog Post - Michael Martinez - Jul 2 2014 - 6:35pm

Science 2.0: How The Math Of 10 Million Data Points Per Day Can Help

They're data mining our children, notes Politico writer Stephanie Simon. She is talking about education technology startup Knewton and their use of data analytics to find out how kids think. They want to be able to predict who will struggle with fract ...

Blog Post - Hank Campbell - Jul 4 2014 - 10:47am

Platonic Solids Generate 4-Dimensional Analogs

Platonic solids are regular bodies in three dimensions, such as the cube and icosahedron, and have been known for millennia. They feature prominently in the natural world wherever geometry and symmetry are important, for instance in lattices and quasi-cry ...

Article - News Staff - Jul 7 2014 - 9:44am

Kadison-Singer Math Solution May Mean A Boost For Science 2.0

Dan Spielman, a Yale computer scientist, wanted to model complex online communities like Facebook, hoping to gain insight into how they form and interact. That's one of the precepts of Science 2.0, understanding how people can participate and scientis ...

Article - News Staff - Jul 12 2014 - 7:19pm

Cutting Wedding Cake The Science Way

Weddings are a lot of stress, primarily for women but, in 19 states, lots of men as well. Math can ease some of the burden- at least when it comes to cutting the cake. But first let's show how it works with just two people. Believe it or not this top ...

Article - News Staff - Jul 17 2014 - 7:00am

Robotic Grasp Gives You Two Extra Fingers

An MIT robotic device is worn around the wrist and basically works like two extra fingers adjacent to the pinky and thumb. A novel control algorithm enables it to move in sync with the wearer's fingers to grasp objects of various shapes and sizes. We ...

Article - News Staff - Jul 20 2014 - 1:02pm