Mathematics

Origami: Paper folding may look like art, but it's all about the math. Mina, CC BY-NC-ND By Thomas Hull, Western New England University Origami is the ancient Japanese art of paper folding. One uncut…

How people behave in a social network is somewhat mysterious, in the same way we can predict a presidential election with unprecedented accuracy but we can't predict how one person among the six…

A young boy sits on the carpet, his feet disappearing into a giant pair of sweatpants he put on over his own clothes before loosely tying his ankles together. He has taken the sweatpants off and is…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…