Mathematics

Game Theory: When Are Groups Social? Or Insufferable?

Humans are primarily social creatures- Thoreau may have pretended he wanted to sit among nature by himself and write a book but he was in a house built by someone else, paid for by someone else, with clothes made by someone else, and writing a book that w ...

Article - News Staff - Oct 30 2014 - 2:22pm

Virtual Meat: "Embedded" Emissions In Livestock Go Beyond CO2

In the 1980s, a press release writer for an environmental group pulled a metric for meat and fossil fuel usage out of the air. It made its way into a book written by an activist and ever since then the concept of 'embedded' emissions has been us ...

Article - News Staff - Nov 14 2014 - 10:03am

Transient Dynamics- What Happens When Vaccines Aren't Perfect

Vaccines are medical technology and like all technology some of the production runs are misfires. Some shots fail due to "leakiness," lack of effectiveness on certain individuals in a population, or shorter duration of potency. ...

Article - News Staff - Nov 21 2014 - 10:49am

Random Walk Is Similar In Particles, Waves...and Ants

In a famous mathematical thought experiment, the goal is to make randomness deterministic by closed-form equation, so mathematicians tried to determine the path of a 'drunken sailor' staggering around a town.  If there are street lamps, he will ...

Article - News Staff - Nov 26 2014 - 11:57am

Golden Ratio Of Space-Time?

The golden ratio is known as the divine proportion because it is found so often in nature. It has fascinated mathematicians since Euclid. A golden ratio is when the ratio of two numbers is the same as the ratio of their sum to the larger of the two quantit ...

Article - News Staff - Nov 28 2014 - 12:30pm

Domino's Square Pizza Or Round- Which Is The Best Value For The Money?

Kelly Abbott /Flickr, CC BY-NC By Tim Trudgian, Australian National University Consider a standard pizza box containing a standard circular pizza. How much more would you be willing to pay for a square pizza that filled the box? ...

Article - The Conversation - Nov 28 2014 - 3:02pm

Precise Digits: Does That Make Numbers More Reliable?

There is such a thing as 'too precise' when it comes to numbers. So what's appropriate? Erik Olsson, CC BY-NC-SA By Jonathan Borwein (Jon), University of Newcastle and David H. Bailey, University of California, Davis ...

Article - The Conversation - Nov 28 2014 - 7:01pm

Selfishness Pays In Real Life: Evolution Favors The Collapse Of Cooperation

In the classical game theory match-up known as the Prisoner’s Dilemma, two prisoners kept isolated from each other are offered a deal: they can confess to a crime and if their accomplice remains silent the charges will be dropped in exchange for testimony ...

Article - News Staff - Dec 2 2014 - 9:00am

Good At Math? 33 Percent Of The Time People Think They Are- But They Aren't

When it comes to math, people mis-characterize themselves quite often. About 20 percent of the people who say they are bad at math score in the top half of tests while about 33 percent of people who say they are good at math score in the bottom half. ...

Article - News Staff - Dec 9 2014 - 6:00pm

To Be Cool Kids, Are We Programmed To Make Bad Decisions?

A desire to be part of the 'in crowd' could damage our ability to make the right decisions, according to a paper in the journal Interface which claims that individuals have evolved to be overly influenced by their neighbors, rather than rely on ...

Article - News Staff - Dec 17 2014 - 8:30am