Article

Editorial

  • The Dearing report
  • Network capacity problem
  • References
Article

Mathematical mysteries: Kepler's conjecture

Sir Walter Raleigh is perhaps best known for laying down his cloak in the mud for Queen Elizabeth I. But, he also started a mathematical quest which to this day remains unsolved.

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.

Article

Editorial

  • Allergic to mathematics?
  • The inner beauty of pure mathematics
  • A journey with mathematics
  • Staff room
Article

Are the polls right?

The British General Election (May 1997) is an example of how simple mathematical ideas help in understanding information that involves numbers.
Article
Image of the game layout

What mathematicians get up to

After 5,000 years, the game of Nine Men's Morris has succumbed to the power of modern computing, plus other recent mathematical discoveries in the world of games.

Article

Agner Krarup Erlang (1878 - 1929)

The mathematics underlying today's complex telephone networks is still based on his work. Erlang was the first person to study the problem of telephone networks.
Article
BT's worldwide network management centre

Call routing in telephone networks

Find out how modern telephone networks use mathematics to make it possible for a person to dial a friend in another country just as easily as if they were in the same street, or to read web pages that are on a computer in another continent.

News story

Women in the history of mathematics

Mathematics is not only for men, says the author of the new booklet "Women in the History of Mathematics from Antiquity to the Nineteenth Century".