© 1997-2004, Millennium Mathematics Project, University
of Cambridge.
Permission is granted to print and copy this page on paper for non-commercial use. For other uses, including electronic redistribution, please contact us.
Permission is granted to print and copy this page on paper for non-commercial use. For other uses, including electronic redistribution, please contact us.
Careers with maths
Rupa Patel reflects to Plus on her work as a financial engineer
A favourite from the archive...
When we finally meet the Martians, John Conway believes they are going to want to talk mathematics.
Subscribe to our RSS feed:
Latest news
(05/05/2008
)
Abstract ideas better than real-world examples for maths learning
(01/05/2008)
Using sand to create new mathematical models
(24/04/2008)
Mathematics tackles an eternal question
Podcast 8, April 2008: Codes and codebreaking - the Enigma machine
Plus puzzle
3 5 6 A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W Z
- Mathematical millionaire?
Plus Online Maths Magazine: News Story
[ TOPOLOGY ] - Career interview: Architect
Wen Quek works for an award-winning architectural cooperative based in London. Recently, she worked on the new library at the University of Cambridge's Centre for Mathematical Sciences. As she tells Plus, Wen sees many parallels between mathematics and architecture.
[ ARCHITECTURE ] - Puzzle page
Plus Online Maths Magazine: Regular Item
[ ALGEBRA ] - Puzzle page
Plus Online Maths Magazine: Regular Item
[ ALGEBRA ] - Puzzle page
Plus Online Maths Magazine: Regular Item
[ ALGEBRA ] - Pluschat
Plus Online Maths Magazine: Regular Item
[ MATHS EDUCATION ] - Outer space: Monkey business
Plus Online Maths Magazine: Regular Item
[ PROBABILITY ] - Pluschat
Plus Online Maths Magazine: Regular Item
[ PUBLIC UNDERSTANDING OF MATHEMATICS ]
- Outer space: Two's company, three's a crowd
Plus Online Maths Magazine: Regular Item
[ MECHANICS ] - Lagrange and the Interplanetary Superhighway
In the last issue Lewis Dartnell explained how chaos on the brain is not only unavoidable but also beneficial. Now he tells us why the same is true for our solar system and sends us on a journey that has been travelled by comets and spacecraft.
[ ASTRONOMY ]
- More hailstones...
Plus Online Maths Magazine: News Story
[ NUMBER THEORY ]
- Outer space: Two's company, three's a crowd
Plus Online Maths Magazine: Regular Item
[ MECHANICS ]
- Mysterious number 6174
6174 is a very mysterious number. Yutaka Nishiyama explains why, and how beautiful mathematical oddities can inspire us to discover new mathematics.
[ NUMBER THEORY ] - Pluschat
Plus Online Maths Magazine: Regular Item
[ MATHEMATICS IN SPORT ]
- And the winner is ...
Plus Online Maths Magazine: News Story
[ PUBLIC UNDERSTANDING OF MATHEMATICS ] - En-Abeled
Plus Online Maths Magazine: News Story
[ PUBLIC UNDERSTANDING OF MATHEMATICS ] - Count-abel even if not solve-abel
Plus Online Maths Magazine: News Story
[ MATHEMATICS IN THE MEDIA ] - A differential story
Plus Online Maths Magazine: News Story
[ ABEL PRIZE ] - Abel to iPod
Plus Online Maths Magazine: News Story
[ ABEL PRIZE ]
- Career interview - Accountant
We talk to Tim Pilkington, a keen basketball player, who has a joint honours BSc in Maths, Physical Education and Sports Science from Loughborough University. Tim has worked as a mathematics teacher and is now working as an accountant.
[ FINANCIAL MATHEMATICS ]
- Career interview: Freelance IT consultant
Jason Winborn specialises in human resource management software Peoplesoft, and has been working freelance as a consultant for four years.
[ IT ]
- Mathematical mysteries: Zeno's Paradoxes
Plus Online Maths Magazine: Regular Item
[ LOGIC ]
- Stellar heartbeats
Plus Online Maths Magazine: News Story
[ ASTRONOMY ]
- Cracking codes, part II
In the second of two articles, Artur Ekert visits the strange subatomic world and investigates the possibility of unbreakable quantum cryptography.
[ CRYPTOGRAPHY ]
- Career interview - Actuarial Student
Find out about what it is like to work as an actuary with Watson Wyatt Partners Worldwide. There's also salary information and a careers contact point.
[ FINANCIAL MATHEMATICS ] - What a coincidence!
Coincidences are familiar to us all but what are the so-called laws of chance? From coin tossing to freak weather events, Geoffrey Grimmett explains how probability is at the heart of it all.
[ PROBABILITY ] - Death and statistics
Actuarial science began as the place where two branches of mathematics meet: compound interest and observed mortality statistics. Financial planning for the future is therefore rooted firmly in the past. John Webb takes us through some of the mathematics involved, introducing us to some of the colourful characters who led the way.
[ FINANCIAL MATHEMATICS ] - Career Interview: Actuary
Actuaries use mathematics to model the real world, finding business solutions to the perennial problems thrown up by life's uncertainties. Kathy Byrne tells Plus about life as Actuarial Director of an Insurance Company.
[ FINANCIAL MATHEMATICS ] - The crystal ball
If you had a crystal ball that allowed you to see your future, what would you arrange differently about your finances? Plus talks to the Government Actuary, Chris Daykin about the pensions crisis, and how actuaries use statistical and modelling techniques to plan for all our futures.
[ FINANCIAL MATHEMATICS ]
- Adam Smith and the invisible hand
Adam Smith is often thought of as the father of modern economics. In his book "An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations" Smith decribed the "invisible hand" mechanism by which he felt economic society operated. Modern game theory has much to add to Smith's description.
[ FINANCIAL MATHEMATICS ]
- Woman joins Adams family
Plus Online Maths Magazine: News Story
[ NUMBER THEORY ]
- Pluschat
Plus Online Maths Magazine: Regular Item
[ MATHEMATICS EDUCATION ] - Pluschat
Plus Online Maths Magazine: Regular Item
[ MATHEMATICS EDUCATION ] - Pluschat
Plus Online Maths Magazine: Regular Item
[ MATHEMATICS EDUCATION ] - Teaching excellence
Plus Online Maths Magazine: News Story
[ MATHS EDUCATION ]
- Maths on the tube
During World Mathematical Year 2000, a sequence of posters were displayed month by month in the trains of the London Underground aiming to stimulate, fascinate - even infuriate passengers! Keith Moffatt tells us about three of the posters from the series.
[ PUBLIC UNDERSTANDING OF MATHEMATICS ]
- Understanding turbulence
Have you ever been in an aeroplane on a smooth flight when suddenly the plane bumps up and down for a short time as it goes through turbulent air? The study of turbulence is used to understand a range of phenomena from the simple squirting of a jet of water to the activity of the sun.
[ FLUID MECHANICS ] - How maths can make you rich and famous: Part II
One million dollars is waiting to be won by anyone who can solve one of the grand mathematical challenges of the 21st century. In the second of two articles, Chris Budd looks at the well-posedness of the Navier-Stokes equations.
[ HISTORY OF MATHEMATICS ]
- Career interview: Military air traffic controller
Geoff Wilson is an air traffic controller for the Royal Air Force. Recently back from Kabul in Afghanistan, he tells Plus how logical thinking under pressure is crucial in his job.
[ MANAGEMENT ]
- The golden ratio and aesthetics
It was Euclid who first defined the Golden Ratio, and ever since people have been fascinated by its extraordinary properties. Find out if beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and how the Golden Ratio crosses from mathematics to the arts.
[ MATHEMATICS AND THE ARTS ] - Pluschat
Plus Online Maths Magazine: Regular Item
[ MATHEMATICS AND THE ARTS ]
- New designs from Africa
Paulus Gerdes takes us on a tour of the mathematical properties of some beautiful designs inspired by the traditional art of Angolan tribespeople.
[ GEOMETRY ]
- Career interview: Aerodynamicist
Plus talks to Christine Hogan, programmer, sysadmin and author, now studying aerodynamics and hoping to become a member of a Formula One team.
[ AERODYNAMICS ]
- I'm not paying that!
It's not that long ago that all you needed to run an airline was a few planes and some competent pilots. But now, with more of us zipping around the globe every year and the advent of no frills airlines, keeping an airline competetive has become a complicated business. Christine Currie explains how your airfare is calculated.
[ OPERATIONS RESEARCH ]
- Exploring the Enigma
During the Second World War, the Allies' codebreakers worked at Bletchley Park to decipher the supposedly unbreakable Enigma code. Claire Ellis tells us about their heroic efforts, which historians believe shortened the war by two years.
[ CRYPTOGRAPHY ]
- Against the odds
Danielle Stretch looks back at the remarkable life of pioneering mathematician Emmy Amalie Noether (1882-1935). Despite her constant struggles to make her way in a man's world, she made significant contributions to the development of modern algebra.
[ HISTORY OF MATHEMATICS ] - The power of groups
Groups are some of the most fundamental objects in maths. Take a system of interacting objects and strip it to the bone to see what makes it tick, and very often you're faced with a group. Colva Roney-Dougal takes us into their abstract world and puzzles over a game of Solitaire.
[ GROUP THEORY ] - An enormous theorem: the classification of finite simple groups
Plus Online Maths Magazine: Feature Article
[ GROUP THEORY ]
- Struggling for sixteen
Plus Online Maths Magazine: News Story
[ MATHEMATICS IN THE MEDIA ]
- Mathematical mysteries: Transcendental meditation
Plus Online Maths Magazine: Regular Item
[ NUMBER THEORY ]
- Pilgrims, planes and postage stamps
Practical problems often have no exact mathematical solution, and we have to resort to using unusual techniques to solve them. From navigation in the 17th century to postage stamps, see how this principle applies to a variety of real-life problems - and also learn how to use a piece of string to locate a German bomber!
[ ENGINEERING ] - Radio controlled?
We take reliable radio communications for granted, but accommodating many different users is not easy. Robert Leese explains how the mathematics of colouring graphs can help avoid interference on your mobile phone.
[ PHYSICS ] - Why Was The Computer Invented When It Was?
Clearly the modern electronic computer couldn't have been built before electronics existed, but it's not clear why computers powered by steam or clockwork weren't invented earlier. Tom Körner speculates on the historical reasons why computers were invented when they were.
[ COMPUTER SCIENCE ] - Howzat!
Numbers are bandied around all the time in sports coverage - and cricket is particularly rich in statistics and rankings. It has probably not escaped your attention that the World Cup of cricket has just finished in South Africa (Australia won - again) and so to mark the occasion, Rob Eastaway tells Plus what it takes to be the best.
[ MATHEMATICAL MODELLING ] - CAPTCHA if they can
Plus Online Maths Magazine: News Story
[ COMPUTER SCIENCE ]
- Life as we don't know it
Physicist and cosmologist Paul Davies has made an unusual move into the infant discipline of astrobiology. He tells Plus about his interest in the big questions: what is life, how would we recognise aliens - and are they all around us?
[ ASTROBIOLOGY ]
- Secrets of the Universe — where size really does matter
Plus Online Maths Magazine: News Story
[ NUMBER THEORY ]
- Mathematical mysteries: Survival of the nicest?
Plus Online Maths Magazine: Regular Item
[ GAME THEORY ]
- Radio controlled?
We take reliable radio communications for granted, but accommodating many different users is not easy. Robert Leese explains how the mathematics of colouring graphs can help avoid interference on your mobile phone.
[ PHYSICS ]
- Why Was The Computer Invented When It Was?
Clearly the modern electronic computer couldn't have been built before electronics existed, but it's not clear why computers powered by steam or clockwork weren't invented earlier. Tom Körner speculates on the historical reasons why computers were invented when they were.
[ COMPUTER SCIENCE ]
- Lagrange and the Interplanetary Superhighway
In the last issue Lewis Dartnell explained how chaos on the brain is not only unavoidable but also beneficial. Now he tells us why the same is true for our solar system and sends us on a journey that has been travelled by comets and spacecraft.
[ ASTRONOMY ] - Count-abel even if not solve-abel
Plus Online Maths Magazine: News Story
[ MATHEMATICS IN THE MEDIA ]
- Ada Lovelace - visions of today
Rachel Thomas looks at the life and work of pioneering woman mathematician Ada Lovelace, who foresaw computer-generated music and graphics, despite living long before the computer era.
[ COMPUTER SCIENCE ]
- Maths and art: the whistlestop tour
Many people find no beauty and pleasure in maths - but, as Lewis Dartnell explains, our brains have evolved to take pleasure in rhythm, structure and pattern. Since these topics are fundamentally mathematical, it should be no surprise that mathematical methods can illuminate our aesthetic sense.
[ MATHEMATICS AND THE ARTS ]
- Mathematical Mysteries: Trisecting the Angle
Plus Online Maths Magazine: Regular Item
[ GEOMETRY ] - How maths can make you rich and famous: Part II
One million dollars is waiting to be won by anyone who can solve one of the grand mathematical challenges of the 21st century. In the second of two articles, Chris Budd looks at the well-posedness of the Navier-Stokes equations.
[ HISTORY OF MATHEMATICS ]
- Analemmatic sundials: How to build one and why they work
We've all seen a traditional sundial, where a triangular wedge is used to cast a shadow onto a marked-out dial - but did you know that there is another kind? In this article, Chris Sangwin and Chris Budd tell us about a different kind of sundial, the analemmatic design, where you can use your own shadow to tell the time.
[ GEOMETRY ]
- Unspinning the boomerang
In this article, we look at the physics behind the curved flight path of a returning boomerang, and explain that boomerangs are really a kind of gyroscope. We even show you how to bang up a boomerang yourself!
[ AERODYNAMICS ] - In skimming, spin's the thing
Plus Online Maths Magazine: News Story
[ PHYSICS ]
- Outer space: Wagons Roll
Plus Online Maths Magazine: Regular Item
[ MECHANICS ]
- How the leopard got its spots
How does the uniform ball of cells that make up an embryo differentiate to create the dramatic patterns of a zebra or leopard? How come there are spotty animals with stripy tails, but no stripy animals with spotty tails? Lewis Dartnell solves these, and other, puzzles of animal patterning.
[ DIFFERENTIAL EQUATIONS ]
- Death and statistics
Actuarial science began as the place where two branches of mathematics meet: compound interest and observed mortality statistics. Financial planning for the future is therefore rooted firmly in the past. John Webb takes us through some of the mathematics involved, introducing us to some of the colourful characters who led the way.
[ FINANCIAL MATHEMATICS ]
- Cars in the next lane really do go faster
Yes, you were right to wish you were in the other lane during this morning's commute! Nick Bostrom tells why we're usually caught in the slow lane.
[ STATISTICS ]
- Not just knots: the secrets of khipu
Plus Online Maths Magazine: News Story
[ HISTORY OF MATHEMATICS ]
- From quasicrystals to Kleenex
This pattern with kite-shaped tiles can be extended to cover any area, but however big we make it, the pattern never repeats itself. Alison Boyle investigates aperiodic tilings, which have had unexpected applications in describing new crystal structures.
[ GEOMETRY ] - Roger Penrose: A Knight on the tiles
Will we ever be able to make computers that think and feel? If not, why not? And what has all this got to do with tiles? Plus talks to Sir Roger Penrose about all this and more.
[ THEORETICAL PHYSICS ]
- Mission to Mars
Plus Online Maths Magazine: News Story
[ SPACE EXPLORATION ]
- Rogue trading?
The dangers of trading derivatives have been well-known ever since they were catapulted into the public eye by the spectacular losses of Nick Leeson and Barings Bank. John Dickson explains what derivatives are, and how they can be both risky, and used to reduce risk.
[ FINANCIAL MATHEMATICS ]
- Not just knots: the secrets of khipu
Plus Online Maths Magazine: News Story
[ HISTORY OF MATHEMATICS ]
- Perfect buildings: the maths of modern architecture
Plus Online Maths Magazine: Feature Article
[ COMPUTER SCIENCE ]
- Mathematical mysteries: The Solitaire Advance
Plus Online Maths Magazine: Regular Item
[ COMBINATORICS ] - The death of the lightning calculator
Plus Online Maths Magazine: Feature Article
[ ARITHMETIC ] - Outer space: Tally ho!
Plus Online Maths Magazine: Regular Item
[ HISTORY OF MATHEMATICS ]
- Dashing along
Currently, disabled computer users have a hard time inputting text, using laborious word-completion. Plus find out how this is changing, thanks to Dasher, a new open-source text-entry system based on arithmetic coding.
[ INFORMATION THEORY ]
- Death and statistics
Actuarial science began as the place where two branches of mathematics meet: compound interest and observed mortality statistics. Financial planning for the future is therefore rooted firmly in the past. John Webb takes us through some of the mathematics involved, introducing us to some of the colourful characters who led the way.
[ FINANCIAL MATHEMATICS ] - Mathematical mysteries: The Solitaire Advance
Plus Online Maths Magazine: Regular Item
[ COMBINATORICS ]
- In perfect harmony
The harmonic series is far less widely known than the arithmetic and geometric series. However, it is linked to a good deal of fascinating mathematics, some challenging Olympiad problems, several surprising applications, and even a famous unsolved problem. John Webb applies some divergent thinking, taking in the weather, traffic flow and card shuffling along the way.
[ ARITHMETIC ]
- Opinion
Plus Online Maths Magazine: Regular Item
[ PUBLIC UNDERSTANDING OF MATHEMATICS ] - Adam Smith and the invisible hand
Adam Smith is often thought of as the father of modern economics. In his book "An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations" Smith decribed the "invisible hand" mechanism by which he felt economic society operated. Modern game theory has much to add to Smith's description.
[ FINANCIAL MATHEMATICS ]
- Mathematical mysteries: Zeno's Paradoxes
Plus Online Maths Magazine: Regular Item
[ LOGIC ]
- A whirlpool of numbers
The Riemann Hypothesis is probably the hardest unsolved problem in all of mathematics, and one of the most important. It has to do with prime numbers - the building blocks of arithmetic. Nick Mee, together with Sir Arthur C. Clarke, tells us about the patterns hiding inside numbers.
[ NUMBER THEORY ]
- What computers can't do
Mike Yates looks at the life and work of wartime code-breaker Alan Turing. Find out what types of numbers we can't count and why there are limits on what can be achieved with Turing machines.
[ COMPUTER SCIENCE ] - Roger Penrose: A Knight on the tiles
Will we ever be able to make computers that think and feel? If not, why not? And what has all this got to do with tiles? Plus talks to Sir Roger Penrose about all this and more.
[ THEORETICAL PHYSICS ] - CAPTCHA if they can
Plus Online Maths Magazine: News Story
[ COMPUTER SCIENCE ] - A bright idea
What do computers and light switches have in common? Yutaka Nishiyama illuminates the connection between light bulbs, logic and binary arithmetic.
[ LOGIC ]
- All about asteroids
Plus Online Maths Magazine: News Story
[ ASTRONOMY ] - Flyby asteroid
Plus Online Maths Magazine: News Story
[ ASTRONOMY ]
- All about asteroids
Plus Online Maths Magazine: News Story
[ ASTRONOMY ] - Flyby asteroid
Plus Online Maths Magazine: News Story
[ ASTRONOMY ] - Near miss or normal?
Plus Online Maths Magazine: News Story
[ MATHEMATICS IN THE MEDIA ]
- The origins of proof II : Kepler's proofs
Johannes Kepler (1571-1630) is now chiefly remembered as a mathematical astronomer who discovered three laws that describe the motion of the planets. J.V. Field continues our series on the origins of proof with an examination of Kepler's astronomy.
[ LOGIC ] - Worldly wobbles
Plus Online Maths Magazine: News Story
[ FLUID MECHANICS ] - Career interview: Science communicator
Science writer and exhibition researcher Alison Boyle tells Plus about her work creating up-to-the-minute news exhibits at the Science Museum in London.
[ PUBLIC UNDERSTANDING OF MATHEMATICS ] - Nobel mathematics
Plus Online Maths Magazine: News Story
[ PUBLIC UNDERSTANDING OF MATHEMATICS ] - Lagrange and the Interplanetary Superhighway
In the last issue Lewis Dartnell explained how chaos on the brain is not only unavoidable but also beneficial. Now he tells us why the same is true for our solar system and sends us on a journey that has been travelled by comets and spacecraft.
[ ASTRONOMY ] - The right spin: how to fly a broken space craft
On the 25th of May 1997 a dramatic collision tore a hole into the space station Mir and sent it hurtling through space. As NASA astronaut Michael Foale tells Plus, the fate of Mir and its crew hinged on a classical set of equations.
[ ASTRONOMY ] - Flyby asteroid
Plus Online Maths Magazine: News Story
[ ASTRONOMY ] - The Nature of Space and Time: An Evening of Speculation
Plus Online Maths Magazine: News Story
[ PHYSICS ] - How not to catch a sunbeam
Plus Online Maths Magazine: News Story
[ SPACE EXPLORATION ] - Just a second
Plus Online Maths Magazine: News Story
[ ASTRONOMY ]
- Stellar heartbeats
Plus Online Maths Magazine: News Story
[ ASTRONOMY ]
- Count-abel even if not solve-abel
Plus Online Maths Magazine: News Story
[ MATHEMATICS IN THE MEDIA ]
- Is now a good time?
Plus Online Maths Magazine: News Story
[ COMPUTER SCIENCE ]
- Robots can't play tennis - yet
Plus Online Maths Magazine: News Story
[ CHAOS THEORY ]
- Opinion
Plus Online Maths Magazine: Regular Item
[ PROBABILITY ]
- Career interview: Avalanche researcher
Jim McElwaine tells Plus how he combines his two loves - mathematics and mountaineering - in avalanche research.
[ FLUID MECHANICS ]
- Howzat!
Numbers are bandied around all the time in sports coverage - and cricket is particularly rich in statistics and rankings. It has probably not escaped your attention that the World Cup of cricket has just finished in South Africa (Australia won - again) and so to mark the occasion, Rob Eastaway tells Plus what it takes to be the best.
[ MATHEMATICAL MODELLING ] - All about averages
Did you know that you can't average averages? Or that Paris is rainier than London ... but it rains more in London than in Paris? Andrew Stickland explores the dangers that face the unwary when using a single number to summarise complex data.
[ STATISTICS ] - Damn lies
Plus Online Maths Magazine: Feature Article
[ STATISTICS ]
- The origins of proof
Starting in this issue, PASS Maths is pleased to present a series of articles about proof and logical reasoning. In this article we give a brief introduction to deductive reasoning and take a look at one of the earliest known examples of mathematical proof.
[ LOGIC ] - The origins of proof III: Proof and puzzles through the ages
For millennia, puzzles and paradoxes have forced mathematicians to continually rethink their ideas of what proofs actually are. Jon Walthoe explains the tricks involved and how great thinkers like Pythagoras, Newton and Gödel tackled the problems.
[ LOGIC ] - The origins of proof IV: The philosophy of proof
Robert Hunt concludes our Origins of Proof series by asking what a proof really is, and how we know that we've actually found one. One for the philosophers to ponder...
[ LOGIC ] - We must know, we will know
Plus Online Maths Magazine: Feature Article
[ HISTORY OF MATHEMATICS ]
- Prehistoric printer
Plus Online Maths Magazine: News Story
[ COMPUTER SCIENCE ] - Why Was The Computer Invented When It Was?
Clearly the modern electronic computer couldn't have been built before electronics existed, but it's not clear why computers powered by steam or clockwork weren't invented earlier. Tom Körner speculates on the historical reasons why computers were invented when they were.
[ COMPUTER SCIENCE ]
BABY'S ARITHMETICAL EXPECTATIONS
- Natural born mathematicians
Neuropsychologist Brian Butterworth tells us about research showing that even newborn babies have a basic understanding of number. It seems we are all mathematicians!
[ MATHEMATICAL THINKING ]
- Backgammon, doubling the stakes, and Brownian motion
Backgammon is said to be one of the oldest games in the world. In this article, Jochen Blath and Peter Mörters discuss one particularly interesting aspect of the game - the doubling cube. They show how a model using Brownian motion can help a player to decide when to double or accept a double.
[ PROBABILITY ]
- Measure for measure
Can you imagine objects that you can't measure? Not ones that don't exist, but real things that have no length or area or volume? It might sound weird, but they're out there. Andrew Davies gives us an introduction to Measure Theory.
[ GEOMETRY ]
- Bigger bandwidth
Plus Online Maths Magazine: News Story
[ INFORMATION THEORY ]
- Faster than light
Plus Online Maths Magazine: News Story
[ PHYSICS ]
- Mathematical mysteries: The Barber's Paradox
Plus Online Maths Magazine: Regular Item
[ LOGIC ]
- Take a break
There are many errors that can occur when numbers are written, printed or transferred in any manner. Luckily, there are schemes in place to detect, and in some cases even correct, such errors almost immediately. Emily Dixon takes a break and discovers that codes are not just for sleuths.
[ CODES ]
- Is now a good time?
Plus Online Maths Magazine: News Story
[ COMPUTER SCIENCE ]
- Image analysis - a modern application of mathematics
New technology has provided us with some amazing images - satellite images, medical images, even images beamed back from Mars. Julian Stander tells us about the increasing role of statistics in interpreting them.
[ STATISTICS ] - Ye banks and Bayes
Plus Online Maths Magazine: News Story
[ FINANCIAL MATHEMATICS ] - Prize specimens
Last October, two mathematicians won £1m when it was revealed that they were the first to solve the Eternity jigsaw puzzle. It had taken them six months and a generous helping of mathematical analysis. Mark Wainwright meets the pair and finds out how they did it.
[ COMPUTER SCIENCE ] - Cars in the next lane really do go faster
Yes, you were right to wish you were in the other lane during this morning's commute! Nick Bostrom tells why we're usually caught in the slow lane.
[ STATISTICS ] - Beyond reasonable doubt
In 1999 solicitor Sally Clark was found guilty of murdering her two baby sons. Highly flawed statistical arguments may have been crucial in securing her conviction. As her second appeal approaches, Plus looks at the case and finds out how courts deal with statistics.
[ STATISTICS ] - Random privacy
Plus Online Maths Magazine: News Story
[ PROBABILITY ] - Thomas Bayes & Mr Zootpooper
The three door problem has become a staple mathematical mindbender, but even if you know the answer, do you really understand it? Phil Wilson lets his imagination run riot in this intergalactic application of Bayes' Theorem.
[ PROBABILITY ]
- Pluschat
Plus Online Maths Magazine: Regular Item
[ PUBLIC UNDERSTANDING OF MATHEMATICS ]
- Fashion gets physical
Plus Online Maths Magazine: News Story
[ PHYSICS ]
- Looking out for number one
You might think that if you collected together a list of naturally-occurring numbers, then as many of them would start with a 1 as with any other digit, but you'd be quite wrong. Jon Walthoe explains why Benford's Law says otherwise, and why tax inspectors are taking an interest.
[ NUMBER THEORY ]
- Mathematical mysteries:
Plus Online Maths Magazine: Regular Item
[ HISTORY OF MATHEMATICS ]
- Daniel Bernoulli and the making of the fluid equation
Daniel Bernoulli (1700-1782) discovered the relationship between the density of a fluid in a pipe, the speed it is travelling in the pipe and the pressure exerted by the fluid against the walls of the pipe. This is the story of what happened.
[ FLUID MECHANICS ] - Understanding turbulence
Have you ever been in an aeroplane on a smooth flight when suddenly the plane bumps up and down for a short time as it goes through turbulent air? The study of turbulence is used to understand a range of phenomena from the simple squirting of a jet of water to the activity of the sun.
[ FLUID MECHANICS ] - Testing Bernoulli: a simple experiment
Here is an experiment that you can easily do yourself to test Bernoulli's equation. There are also 2 questions and answers.
[ FLUID MECHANICS ] - Prawn crackers
Plus Online Maths Magazine: News Story
[ FLUID MECHANICS ]
- Ada Lovelace - visions of today
Rachel Thomas looks at the life and work of pioneering woman mathematician Ada Lovelace, who foresaw computer-generated music and graphics, despite living long before the computer era.
[ COMPUTER SCIENCE ]
- Coincidence, correlation and chance
How much evidence would you need before buying into a get rich quick scheme? Do high ice cream sales cause shark attacks? And just how likely was it that you were ever born? Andrew Stickland finds out that, when it comes to probability, our instincts can lead us seriously astray.
[ PROBABILITY ] - Pluschat
Plus Online Maths Magazine: Regular Item
[ OPINION POLLS ]
- Extracting beauty from chaos
Images based on Lyapunov Exponent fractals are very striking. Andy Burbanks explains what Lyapunov Exponents are, what the much misunderstood phenomenon of chaos really is, and how you can iterate functions to produce marvellous images of chaos from simple mathematics.
[ GEOMETRY ]
- Stephen Hawking's 60 years in a nutshell
Plus is very proud to present Professor Stephen Hawking's own Birthday Symposium address.
[ THEORETICAL PHYSICS ] - No place like home for Martin Rees
Astronomer Royal Sir Martin Rees gives Plus a whistlestop tour of some of the more extraordinary features of our cosmos, and explains how lucky we are that the universe is the way it is.
[ ASTRONOMY ] - Catching waves with Kip Thorne
What happens when one black hole meets another? Professor Kip Thorne shows us how to eavesdrop on these cosmic events by watching for telltale gravitational waves.
[ PHYSICS ] - Happy Birthday Stephen Hawking!
This issue of Plus is a special, marking the occasion of Stephen Hawking's 60th birthday. Plus attended his THEORETICAL PHYSICS ] - Happy Birthday Stephen Hawking!
Plus Online Maths Magazine: News Story
[ THEORETICAL PHYSICS ] - Winning background research
Plus Online Maths Magazine: News Story
[ PHYSICS ]
- Codes, trees and the prefix property
Underlying our vast global telecommunications networks are codes: formal schemes for representing information in machine-readable and transmissible formats. Kona Macphee examines the prefix property, one of the important features of a good code.
[ INFORMATION THEORY ] - RIP Claude Shannon
Claude Shannon, who died on February 24, was the founder of Information Theory, which is the basis of modern telecommunications. Rachel Thomas looks at Shannon's life and works.
[ INFORMATION THEORY ] - Omega and why maths has no TOEs
Kurt Gödel, who would have celebrated his 100th birthday next year, showed in 1931 that the power of maths to explain the world is limited: his famous incompleteness theorem proves mathematically that maths cannot prove everything. Gregory Chaitin explains why he thinks that Gödel's incompleteness theorem is only the tip of the iceberg, and why mathematics is far too complex ever to be described by a single theory.
[ PROOF ]
- X-otic X-ray visions
Plus Online Maths Magazine: News Story
[ ASTRONOMY ]
- Millennial wobbles
Plus Online Maths Magazine: News Story
[ ENGINEERING ]
- Maths for the broken-hearted
Plus Online Maths Magazine: News Story
[ BIOMATHEMATICS ] - Cat count
Plus Online Maths Magazine: News Story
[ STATISTICS ]
- Maths on the brain
Plus Online Maths Magazine: News Story
[ MATHEMATICAL MODELLING ]
- Career interview: Biomechanical engineer
Jose Munoz explains how engineering can allow you to explore the unknown, from understanding how mechanical structures bend to investigating the way genes affect the shape of embryos.
[ ENGINEERING ]
- Modelling, step by step
Why can't human beings walk as fast as they run? And why do we prefer to break into a run rather than walk above a certain speed? Using mathematical modelling, R. McNeill Alexander finds some answers.
[ BIOMATHEMATICS ]
- Pluschat
Plus Online Maths Magazine: Regular Item
[ PUBLIC UNDERSTANDING OF MATHEMATICS ]
- What a coincidence!
Coincidences are familiar to us all but what are the so-called laws of chance? From coin tossing to freak weather events, Geoffrey Grimmett explains how probability is at the heart of it all.
[ PROBABILITY ] - The luck of the draw
Plus Online Maths Magazine: News Story
[ PROBABILITY ]
- Career interview: Financial modelling
David Spaughton and Anton Merlushkin work for Credit Suisse First Boston, where they provide traders in the hectic dealing room with software based on complicated mathematical models of the financial markets. PASS Maths interviewed them at their offices in Canary Wharf in London.
[ FINANCIAL MATHEMATICS ]
- Stephen Hawking's 60 years in a nutshell
Plus is very proud to present Professor Stephen Hawking's own Birthday Symposium address.
[ THEORETICAL PHYSICS ] - Catching waves with Kip Thorne
What happens when one black hole meets another? Professor Kip Thorne shows us how to eavesdrop on these cosmic events by watching for telltale gravitational waves.
[ PHYSICS ] - Happy Birthday Stephen Hawking!
This issue of Plus is a special, marking the occasion of Stephen Hawking's 60th birthday. Plus attended his THEORETICAL PHYSICS ] - Happy Birthday Stephen Hawking!
Plus Online Maths Magazine: News Story
[ THEORETICAL PHYSICS ] - X-otic X-ray visions
Plus Online Maths Magazine: News Story
[ ASTRONOMY ]
- Career interview: Project finance consultant
Nick Crawley had recently set up his own financial consultancy firm in Sydney, Australia, offering advice on large-scale financing deals. He tells Plus about the challenges and rewards of working in an incentive-driven environment.
[ FINANCIAL MATHEMATICS ]
- Cracking codes
In the first of two articles, Artur Ekert takes a tour through the history of codes and the prospects for truly unbreakable quantum cryptography.
[ CRYPTOGRAPHY ] - Exploring the Enigma
During the Second World War, the Allies' codebreakers worked at Bletchley Park to decipher the supposedly unbreakable Enigma code. Claire Ellis tells us about their heroic efforts, which historians believe shortened the war by two years.
[ CRYPTOGRAPHY ]
- RIP Claude Shannon
Claude Shannon, who died on February 24, was the founder of Information Theory, which is the basis of modern telecommunications. Rachel Thomas looks at Shannon's life and works.
[ INFORMATION THEORY ] - A bright idea
What do computers and light switches have in common? Yutaka Nishiyama illuminates the connection between light bulbs, logic and binary arithmetic.
[ LOGIC ]
- Bang up a boomerang!
Here's how you can make your own cross-shaped boomerang - and it's safe enough to fly indoors! Hugh rolls up his sleeves and proves that theory isn't everything.
[ AERODYNAMICS ] - Unspinning the boomerang
In this article, we look at the physics behind the curved flight path of a returning boomerang, and explain that boomerangs are really a kind of gyroscope. We even show you how to bang up a boomerang yourself!
[ AERODYNAMICS ]
- Testing Bernoulli: a simple experiment
Here is an experiment that you can easily do yourself to test Bernoulli's equation. There are also 2 questions and answers.
[ FLUID MECHANICS ]
- How big is the Milky Way?
A question which has been vexing astronomers for a long time is whether the forces of attraction between stars and galaxies will eventually result in the universe collapsing back into a single point, or whether it will expand forever with the distances between stars and galaxies growing ever larger. Toby O'Neil describes how the mathematical theory of dimension gives us a way of approaching the question.
[ GEOMETRY ]
- Maths aMazes
C. J. Budd and C. J. Sangwin show us how to create mazes, and explain why mazes and networks have much in common. In fact the study of mazes and labyrinths takes us into the dark territory of murder, suicide, adultery, passion, intrigue, religion and conquest...
[ TOPOLOGY ]
- Modelling nature with fractals
Computer games and cinema special effects owe much of their realism to the study of fractals. Martin Turner takes you on a journey from the motion of a microscopic particle to the creation of imaginary moonscapes.
[ GEOMETRY ] - Backgammon, doubling the stakes, and Brownian motion
Backgammon is said to be one of the oldest games in the world. In this article, Jochen Blath and Peter Mörters discuss one particularly interesting aspect of the game - the doubling cube. They show how a model using Brownian motion can help a player to decide when to double or accept a double.
[ PROBABILITY ] - Dancing with Einstein
Plus Online Maths Magazine: News Story
[ MATHEMATICS AND THE ARTS ]
- Mathematical mysteries: twin primes
Plus Online Maths Magazine: Regular Item
[ NUMBER THEORY ]
- Probing the pint
Plus Online Maths Magazine: News Story
[ FLUID MECHANICS ] - Prawn crackers
Plus Online Maths Magazine: News Story
[ FLUID MECHANICS ]
- Opinion
Plus Online Maths Magazine: Regular Item
[ FINANCIAL MATHEMATICS ]
- The buzz on bumblebees
Plus Online Maths Magazine: News Story
[ FLUID MECHANICS ]
- Doing the twist
Plus Online Maths Magazine: News Story
[ FLUID MECHANICS ] - Maths on the tube
During World Mathematical Year 2000, a sequence of posters were displayed month by month in the trains of the London Underground aiming to stimulate, fascinate - even infuriate passengers! Keith Moffatt tells us about three of the posters from the series.
[ PUBLIC UNDERSTANDING OF MATHEMATICS ] - Finding order in chaos
All of science can be regarded as motivated by the search for rules behind the randomness of nature, and attempts to make prediction in the presence of uncertainty. Chris Budd describes the search for pattern and order in chaos.
[ CHAOS THEORY ] - Chaotic crochet
Plus Online Maths Magazine: News Story
[ CHAOS THEORY ]
- Cracking codes
In the first of two articles, Artur Ekert takes a tour through the history of codes and the prospects for truly unbreakable quantum cryptography.
[ CRYPTOGRAPHY ]
- Safety in numbers
Today's digital world with its free flow of information, would not exist without cryptography to guarantee our privacy. Plus meets mathematician, author and broadcaster Simon Singh to find out about the science of secrecy.
[ ENCRYPTION ]
- Pushing back Pi
Plus Online Maths Magazine: News Story
[ NUMBER THEORY ]
- Testing Bernoulli: a simple experiment
Here is an experiment that you can easily do yourself to test Bernoulli's equation. There are also 2 questions and answers.
[ FLUID MECHANICS ] - The origins of proof III: Proof and puzzles through the ages
For millennia, puzzles and paradoxes have forced mathematicians to continually rethink their ideas of what proofs actually are. Jon Walthoe explains the tricks involved and how great thinkers like Pythagoras, Newton and Gödel tackled the problems.
[ LOGIC ] - Lagrange and the Interplanetary Superhighway
In the last issue Lewis Dartnell explained how chaos on the brain is not only unavoidable but also beneficial. Now he tells us why the same is true for our solar system and sends us on a journey that has been travelled by comets and spacecraft.
[ ASTRONOMY ]
- Rogue trading?
The dangers of trading derivatives have been well-known ever since they were catapulted into the public eye by the spectacular losses of Nick Leeson and Barings Bank. John Dickson explains what derivatives are, and how they can be both risky, and used to reduce risk.
[ FINANCIAL MATHEMATICS ]
- What computers can't do
Mike Yates looks at the life and work of wartime code-breaker Alan Turing. Find out what types of numbers we can't count and why there are limits on what can be achieved with Turing machines.
[ COMPUTER SCIENCE ]
- How big is the Milky Way?
A question which has been vexing astronomers for a long time is whether the forces of attraction between stars and galaxies will eventually result in the universe collapsing back into a single point, or whether it will expand forever with the distances between stars and galaxies growing ever larger. Toby O'Neil describes how the mathematical theory of dimension gives us a way of approaching the question.
[ GEOMETRY ] - Measure for measure
Can you imagine objects that you can't measure? Not ones that don't exist, but real things that have no length or area or volume? It might sound weird, but they're out there. Andrew Davies gives us an introduction to Measure Theory.
[ GEOMETRY ]
- Measure for measure
Can you imagine objects that you can't measure? Not ones that don't exist, but real things that have no length or area or volume? It might sound weird, but they're out there. Andrew Davies gives us an introduction to Measure Theory.
[ GEOMETRY ]
- Radioactive decay and exponential laws
Arguably, the exponential function crops up more than any other when using mathematics to describe the physical world. In the second of two articles on physical phenomena which obey exponential laws, Ian Garbett discusses radioactive decay.
[ PHYSICS ]
- Maths for the broken-hearted
Plus Online Maths Magazine: News Story
[ BIOMATHEMATICS ]
- Natural born mathematicians
Neuropsychologist Brian Butterworth tells us about research showing that even newborn babies have a basic understanding of number. It seems we are all mathematicians!
[ MATHEMATICAL THINKING ] - Counting canines
Plus Online Maths Magazine: News Story
[ MATHEMATICAL THINKING ]
- Maths adds up
Plus Online Maths Magazine: News Story
[ PUBLIC UNDERSTANDING OF MATHEMATICS ] - Pluschat
Plus Online Maths Magazine: Regular Item
[ MATHEMATICS EDUCATION ] - Pluschat
Plus Online Maths Magazine: Regular Item
[ PUBLIC UNDERSTANDING OF MATHEMATICS ]
- Fishy business
'Of the myriad strategems I employ to avoid useful work, the one I most enjoy is to envision how scientists of earlier eras would have made use of modern computers.' John L. Casti tells us how today's mathematicians are using computers to carry on the work of turn-of-the-century polymath d'Arcy Wentworth Thompson, who showed how mathematical functions could be applied to the shape of one organism to continuously transform it into other, physically similar organisms.
[ BIOMATHEMATICS ]
- Stephen Hawking's 60 years in a nutshell
Plus is very proud to present Professor Stephen Hawking's own Birthday Symposium address.
[ THEORETICAL PHYSICS ]
- Coincidence, correlation and chance
How much evidence would you need before buying into a get rich quick scheme? Do high ice cream sales cause shark attacks? And just how likely was it that you were ever born? Andrew Stickland finds out that, when it comes to probability, our instincts can lead us seriously astray.
[ PROBABILITY ]
- Prawn crackers
Plus Online Maths Magazine: News Story
[ FLUID MECHANICS ]
- Mathematical mysteries: the three body problem
Plus Online Maths Magazine: Regular Item
[ ASTRONOMY ]
- Games, Life and the Game of Life
When we finally meet the Martians, John Conway believes they are going to want to talk mathematics. He talks to Plus about his Life game, artificial life and what we will have in common with extraterrestrials.
[ GAME THEORY ]
- Erasing experimental error
Plus Online Maths Magazine: News Story
[ MATHEMATICS EDUCATION ]
- Hardboiled detectives
Plus Online Maths Magazine: News Story
[ FLUID MECHANICS ]
- Galloping gyroscopes
If boomerangs are really gyroscopes, then what are gyroscopes? In this article, we explore some more of the physics of gyroscopes, and demonstrate some interesting experiments you can do with them.
[ PHYSICS ]
- Lagrange and the Interplanetary Superhighway
In the last issue Lewis Dartnell explained how chaos on the brain is not only unavoidable but also beneficial. Now he tells us why the same is true for our solar system and sends us on a journey that has been travelled by comets and spacecraft.
[ ASTRONOMY ]
- Secrets of the Universe — where size really does matter
Plus Online Maths Magazine: News Story
[ NUMBER THEORY ]
- Worldly wobbles
Plus Online Maths Magazine: News Story
[ FLUID MECHANICS ]
- Radio controlled?
We take reliable radio communications for granted, but accommodating many different users is not easy. Robert Leese explains how the mathematics of colouring graphs can help avoid interference on your mobile phone.
[ PHYSICS ]
- Long range forecast
Plus Online Maths Magazine: News Story
[ FLUID MECHANICS ] - Extracting beauty from chaos
Images based on Lyapunov Exponent fractals are very striking. Andy Burbanks explains what Lyapunov Exponents are, what the much misunderstood phenomenon of chaos really is, and how you can iterate functions to produce marvellous images of chaos from simple mathematics.
[ GEOMETRY ] - Doing the twist
Plus Online Maths Magazine: News Story
[ FLUID MECHANICS ] - Chaos in Numberland: The secret life of continued fractions
One of the most striking and powerful means of presenting numbers is completely ignored in the mathematics that is taught in schools, and it rarely makes an appearance in university courses. Yet the continued fraction is one of the most revealing representations of many numbers, sometimes containing extraordinary patterns and symmetries. John D. Barrow explains.
[ NUMBER THEORY ] - Fractal expressionism
In the late 1940s, American painter Jackson Pollock dripped paint from a can on to vast canvases rolled out across the floor of his barn. Richard P. Taylor explains that Pollock's patterns are really fractals - the fingerprint of Nature.
[ GEOMETRY ] - Maths on the tube
During World Mathematical Year 2000, a sequence of posters were displayed month by month in the trains of the London Underground aiming to stimulate, fascinate - even infuriate passengers! Keith Moffatt tells us about three of the posters from the series.
[ PUBLIC UNDERSTANDING OF MATHEMATICS ] - Lagrange and the Interplanetary Superhighway
In the last issue Lewis Dartnell explained how chaos on the brain is not only unavoidable but also beneficial. Now he tells us why the same is true for our solar system and sends us on a journey that has been travelled by comets and spacecraft.
[ ASTRONOMY ]
- Ada Lovelace - visions of today
Rachel Thomas looks at the life and work of pioneering woman mathematician Ada Lovelace, who foresaw computer-generated music and graphics, despite living long before the computer era.
[ COMPUTER SCIENCE ]
- Career interview: Fluid mechanics researcher
André Léger studies the fluid mechanics of food travelling through the intestines for consumer goods giant Unilever.
[ FLUID MECHANICS ]
- Nobel mathematics
Plus Online Maths Magazine: News Story
[ PUBLIC UNDERSTANDING OF MATHEMATICS ] - Burning buried sunshine
Plus Online Maths Magazine: News Story
[ MATHEMATICS IN THE MEDIA ]
- Kasparov defeated!
Plus Online Maths Magazine: News Story
[ COMPUTER SCIENCE ] - Practice makes perfect
In 1997 Garry Kasparov, then World Champion, lost an entire chess match to the IBM supercomputer Deep Blue, and it is only a matter of time before the machines become absolutely unbeatable. But the human brain, as Lewis Dartnell explains, is still able to put up a good fight by exploiting computers' weaknesses.
[ ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE ] - Puzzle page
Plus Online Maths Magazine: Regular Item
[ CHESS ]
- Game theory and the Cuban missile crisis
Steven J. Brams uses the Cuban missile crisis to illustrate the Theory of Moves, which is not just an abstract mathematical model but one that mirrors the real-life choices, and underlying thinking, of flesh-and-blood decision makers.
[ GAME THEORY ]
- Practice makes perfect
In 1997 Garry Kasparov, then World Champion, lost an entire chess match to the IBM supercomputer Deep Blue, and it is only a matter of time before the machines become absolutely unbeatable. But the human brain, as Lewis Dartnell explains, is still able to put up a good fight by exploiting computers' weaknesses.
[ ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE ]
- Through the looking-glass
Some molecules - thalidomide, for example - come in both left and right handed versions, while others are indistinguishable from their reflections. Plus finds out about the role of mathematical symmetry in chemistry.
[ GROUP THEORY ] - Life as we don't know it
Physicist and cosmologist Paul Davies has made an unusual move into the infant discipline of astrobiology. He tells Plus about his interest in the big questions: what is life, how would we recognise aliens - and are they all around us?
[ ASTROBIOLOGY ] - Split reflections
Plus Online Maths Magazine: News Story
[ PHYSICS ]
- The magical mathematics of music
According to Shakespeare, music is the food of love. But Jeffrey Rosenthal follows Galileo's observation that the entire universe is written in the language of mathematics - and that includes music.
[ MATHEMATICS AND THE ARTS ]
- Cracking codes, part II
In the second of two articles, Artur Ekert visits the strange subatomic world and investigates the possibility of unbreakable quantum cryptography.
[ CRYPTOGRAPHY ]
- Mathematical mysteries: Transcendental meditation
Plus Online Maths Magazine: Regular Item
[ NUMBER THEORY ] - How maths can make you rich and famous: Part II
One million dollars is waiting to be won by anyone who can solve one of the grand mathematical challenges of the 21st century. In the second of two articles, Chris Budd looks at the well-posedness of the Navier-Stokes equations.
[ HISTORY OF MATHEMATICS ]
- Unspinning the boomerang
In this article, we look at the physics behind the curved flight path of a returning boomerang, and explain that boomerangs are really a kind of gyroscope. We even show you how to bang up a boomerang yourself!
[ AERODYNAMICS ] - Galloping gyroscopes
If boomerangs are really gyroscopes, then what are gyroscopes? In this article, we explore some more of the physics of gyroscopes, and demonstrate some interesting experiments you can do with them.
[ PHYSICS ]
CLAY INSTITUTE MILLENNIUM PRIZE PROBLEMS
- Proof for Poincaré?
Plus Online Maths Magazine: News Story
[ TOPOLOGY ] - How maths can make you rich and famous
One million dollars is waiting to be won by anyone who can solve one of the grand mathematical challenges of the 21st century. But be warned...these problems are hard. In the first of two articles, Chris Budd explains how to hit the bigtime.
[ OPTIMISATION ] - How maths can make you rich and famous: Part II
One million dollars is waiting to be won by anyone who can solve one of the grand mathematical challenges of the 21st century. In the second of two articles, Chris Budd looks at the well-posedness of the Navier-Stokes equations.
[ HISTORY OF MATHEMATICS ] - Mathematical millionaire?
Plus Online Maths Magazine: News Story
[ TOPOLOGY ] - Mind the gap
Plus Online Maths Magazine: News Story
[ NUMBER THEORY ] - Code-breakers, doughnuts, and violins
Plus Online Maths Magazine: News Story
[ PUBLIC UNDERSTANDING OF MATHEMATICS ]
- The best medicine?
To make hard decisions, you need hard facts. Medical statistics can help us to decide what treatment to look for when we are ill, and to estimate our chances of recovery.
[ STATISTICS ]
- Open wide...
Plus Online Maths Magazine: News Story
[ COMPUTER SCIENCE ]
- Winning background research
Plus Online Maths Magazine: News Story
[ PHYSICS ]
- Coding theory: the first 50 years
Space probes, like NASA's recent Pathfinder mission to Mars, have radio transmitters of only a few watts, but have to transmit pictures and scientific data across hundreds of millions of miles without the information being completely swamped by noise. Read about how coding theory helps.
[ INFORMATION THEORY ] - Codes, trees and the prefix property
Underlying our vast global telecommunications networks are codes: formal schemes for representing information in machine-readable and transmissible formats. Kona Macphee examines the prefix property, one of the important features of a good code.
[ INFORMATION THEORY ] - Interview: Maths student
In this issue we talk to maths student Emily Dixon about her university studies, and where maths might take her in the future.
[ MATHEMATICS EDUCATION ] - Career interview: IT project manager
Bharat Dodia tells Plus how his love of maths has taken him from turbulent times to building better IT systems for Ford.
[ MATHEMATICS EDUCATION ] - A mathematical mystery begins...
Plus Online Maths Magazine: News Story
[ PUBLIC UNDERSTANDING OF MATHEMATICS ]
- What a coincidence!
Coincidences are familiar to us all but what are the so-called laws of chance? From coin tossing to freak weather events, Geoffrey Grimmett explains how probability is at the heart of it all.
[ PROBABILITY ]
- What a coincidence!
Coincidences are familiar to us all but what are the so-called laws of chance? From coin tossing to freak weather events, Geoffrey Grimmett explains how probability is at the heart of it all.
[ PROBABILITY ]
- Graphical methods I: Slug wars
To arm or to disarm? This is the question in Phil Wilson's article, which explores the maths behind a cold war in slug world.
[ GRAPHICAL METHODS ] - Graphical Methods II: The return of the slime
In last issue's Graphical methods I Phil Wilson used maths to predict the outcome of a cold war in slug world. In this self-contained article he looks at slug world after the disaster: with only a few survivors and all infra-structure destroyed, which species will take root and how will they develop? Graphs can tell it all.
[ GRAPHICAL METHODS ]
- More hailstones...
Plus Online Maths Magazine: News Story
[ NUMBER THEORY ]
- Friends and strangers
Sometimes a mathematical object can be so big that, however disorderly we make the object, areas of order are bound to emerge. Imre Leader looks at the colourful world of Ramsey Theory.
[ COMBINATORICS ]
- In space, do all roads lead to home?
Is the Universe finite, with an edge, or infinite, with no edges? Or is it even stranger: finite but with no edges? It sounds far-fetched but the mathematical theory of topology makes it possible, and nobody yet knows the truth. Janna Levin tells us more.
[ TOPOLOGY ]
- Unveiling the Mandelbrot set
Plus Online Maths Magazine: Feature Article
[ FRACTAL ]
- Roger Penrose: A Knight on the tiles
Will we ever be able to make computers that think and feel? If not, why not? And what has all this got to do with tiles? Plus talks to Sir Roger Penrose about all this and more.
[ THEORETICAL PHYSICS ] - Curious quaternions
Mathematician and physicist John Baez declares himself fascinated by exceptions in mathematics. This interest has led him to study the octonions, and, through them, to find out more about the origins of complex numbers and quaternions. In the first of two articles, he talks about connections between algebra and geometry, and the importance of lateral thinking in mathematics.
[ ARITHMETIC ] - Ubiquitous octonions
Mathematician and physicist John Baez declares himself fascinated by exceptions in mathematics. This interest has led him to study the octonions, and, through them, to find out more about the origins of complex numbers and quaternions. In the second of two articles, he talks about the characters of the different dimensions, beauty and utility in mathematics, and just why he likes dimension 8 so much.