Dorian Raymer explains, in this video, his Ig Nobel Prize-winning research about how and why bunches of string will inevitably become tangled:
Tag: math
Mathematicalistic Analysis of Broadway Collaboration Success
A 2005 study tried to use math techniques to analyze who was (and who will be) successful in building broadway shows: “Collaboration and Creativity: The Small World Problem,” Brian Uzzi [Northwestern University] and Jarrett Spiro [Stanford University then, INSEAD now], American Journal of Sociology, vol. 111, no. 2, September 2005. The authors analyzed the small […]
Hairy Ball Update 2012
The Hairy Ball Theorem (HBT) was first postulated (and then proved) by Luitzen Egbertus Jan Brouwer in 1912. An informal statement of the theorem is that : “One cannot comb the hair on a coconut”. Temptations to classify the theorem as trivial should be strongly resisted – as it’s still finding relevance in many current research […]
Happy 100th to Willcocks of the squared square
Ed Pegg writes, on the Mattpuzzle site: “T. H. Willcocks [pictured here], the first to make a perfect squared square, turned 100 on 19 April 2012″. Further detail: At WWII end, an able young Englishman became aware of and interested in the problem of squaring the square. This man is Theophilus Harding Willcocks (THW), also known […]