This week’s Feedback column (that I write) in New Scientist magazine has two segments. Here’s how they begin: Physics vs Mona Lisa — The wood and smile of the Mona Lisa fascinate scientists. Not wooden smile. Wood and smile. A new study in the Journal of Cultural Heritage reveals how researchers have spent 18 years exploring the wooden panel on which Leonardo da […]
Philosophers, theologians, and many others have been searching for an unequivocal definition of Evil for at least 2,000 years. Perhaps a mathematical one might help? Francisco Parro, who is Associate Professor of Economics, Universidad Adolfo Ibañez, School of Business, Chile, makes steps towards such things in his latest paper : The problem of evil: An […]
Why would London’s Science Museum permanently archive four rolls of Kleenex toilet paper from 1997? The answer lies in the design of its embossed cushioning pattern . . . The tiled design is a version of Penrose Tiling – a mathematically repeating pattern which was devised (or if you prefer discovered) by Nobel Prize winner Sir […]
“Leibniz’s recipe for determining logarithms in this way is delightfully simple and can easily be carried out in practice using, for example, a cheap necklace pinned to a cardboard box with sewing needles.” So wrote Viktor Blåsjö, in the essay “How to Find the Logarithm of Any Number Using Nothing But a Piece of String,” […]
Ig Nobel Prize winner L. Mahadevan is profiled, by Steve Nadis, in Quanta magazine: A Scientist Who Delights in the Mundane Mahadevan uses mathematics and physics to explore commonplace phenomena, showing that many of the objects and behaviors we take for granted, and consequently give little thought to, are quite extraordinary upon closer examination… He […]
This tiny video, by Gracie Cunningham, is a beautifully subtle example of how to make people laugh, then think. The twitter comment about it, by Alex Turner, is a good example of how you can lead a horse’s ass to wonder, but you can’t make him think. https://twitter.com/i/status/1298372968838508546 Gracie Cunningham was bombarded, on Twitter, with […]
If you’re earnestly chasing something that can’t tun as fast as you do, a cursory mathematical analysis of the situation can give a reassuring result – you’ll probably catch up with it. (Despite what the Ancient Greek philosopher Zeno might have said about it). But what if the entity being chased knows that it’s being […]
When is a knot not a knot? • Take a piece of string. Tangle it, and thread it though itself, in any way you choose. Glue the ends together. You may well have created a KNOT. • Take a piece of string. Glue the ends together, tangle it, and thread it though itself, in any […]
Cornell University is hosting a talk today about the how-do-shoelaces-come-untied problem— specifically about the math and physics of it: MAE Colloquium: “The Shoelace Catastrophe (or a Knotty Problem on a Shoestring“) Tuesday, September 3, 2019 at 4:00pm, B11 Kimball Hall ABSTRACT: The accidental untying of a shoelace while walking often occurs without warning. Modeling and […]
Here’s Nicole Sharp talking about what happened when she hated math class when she was a child. What happened excited Nicole in a way that led to her eventual unusual career. Nicole created and runs FYFD, the most popular fluid dynamics web site in this part of the universe. ABOUT THIS LITTLE VIDEO SERIES—This is […]