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turbulence

Designing loudspeakers

In his second article, David Henwood explains the role of mathematics in the design of Hi-Fi loudspeakers.

Article

Natural frequencies and music

In the first of two articles, David Henwood discusses the vibrations that can be harnessed by musical instrument makers.
Article
pair of dice, one showing one and the other six

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.

News story

The magical maze

Mathematics is a maze, according to Ian Stewart at the Royal Institutions Christmas Lecture.

News story

Primes update: success again!

In issue No 1 we introduced GIMPS, the Great Internet Mersenne Prime Search. Well, on Sunday 24th August 1997 they did it again.

News story

Pushing back Pi

Numbers like Pi have no repeating pattern. So just how accurately do we know what it is?

News story

Cosmos launch

COSMOS, the world's first national cosmology supercomputer, has been launched.

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Line drawing of Helen of Troy

Dynamic programming: an introduction

The previous feature, "Mathematics, marriage and finding somewhere to eat" investigated the problem of finding the best potential partner from a fixed number of potential partners using a technique known as "optimal stopping". Inevitably, mathematicians and mathematical psychologists have constructed other models of the problem...

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Wedding photo

Decoding a war time diary

An account of how a prisoner of war's diary was recently decoded. Donald Hill wrote his diary in a numerical code, disguised as a set of mathematical tables, while in Hong Kong during and after the Japanese invasion of 1941.