Mathematics

The human brain is very good — quite excellent, really — at finding patterns. We delight in puzzles that involve pattern recognition... consider word-search puzzles, the “Where’s Waldo” stuff, and…

Is there still a gender gap in math?  There is if you are selling cultural drama but in actuality, not so much.  Complaints aside, the No Child Left Behind program accomplished its mission…

Numerical models had a tough decade to start off the 2000s.  A field that had shown itself to be both scientific and applied in areas like semiconductor physics was extrapolated out to cultural…

A forgotten number system invented in the 19th century may provide the simplest explanation for why our universe could have 10 dimensions. THERE IS MORE TO IT Throughout middle school years, the…

You are in a game with one hundred other players. They don't know you, you don't know them, and you can not communicate with any of them. The game is called 'even/odd(s)' and is explained to you as…

Statistical tests and economic forecasting are something of a joke; Paul Krugman is fun because he rants about Republicans in the New York Times but no one would ever actually let him manage money.…

Once in 737,000 times. That's how frequently happens what I saw yesterday evening, playing poker with my kids.  We were playing with eights and up since we were three, so 28 cards. And Filippo…

Max Tegmark calculated a Really Big Number1 (RBN). It represents the probability of you having an identical Alter Ego (AE) at some other place than where you are now. This distance is so vast, it is…

Complexity theorists have some bad news for people who insist that unless it carries an organic label, food is evil; a group from the New England Complex Systems Institute says they've…

"A blind use of tail-area probabilities allows the statistician  to cheat, by claiming at a suitable point in a sequential  experiment that he has a train to catch. This must have been…