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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!
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Maths in the dock

Chemists John Watling and Allen Thomas talk to Plus about the vital role of maths in presenting criminal evidence.
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infinite series of surprises

An infinite series of surprises

Infinite series occupy a central and important place in mathematics. C. J. Sangwin shows us how eighteenth-century mathematician Leonhard Euler solved one of the foremost infinite series problems of his day.

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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.
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Two white backgammon pieces

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.

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Why knot: knots, molecules and stick numbers

Knots crop up all over the place, from tying a shoelace to molecular structure, but they are also elegant mathematical objects. Colin Adams asks when is a molecule knot a molecule? and what happens if you try to build a knot out of sticks?
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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.
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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.
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Mathematical mysteries: Painting the Plane

Suppose you have an infinitely large sheet of paper (mathematicians refer to this hypothetical object as the plane). You also have a number of different colours - pots of paint, perhaps. Your aim is to colour every point on the plane using the colours available. That is, each point must be assigned one colour.
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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...

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The mathematics of diseases

Over the past one hundred years, mathematics has been used to understand and predict the spread of diseases, relating important public-health questions to basic infection parameters. Matthew Keeling describes some of the mathematical developments that have improved our understanding and predictive ability.