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.
The term fractal, introduced in the mid 1970's by Benoit Mandelbrot, is now commonly used to describe this family of non-differentiable functions that are infinite in length. Find out more about their origins and history.
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!
Since we first wrote about the Goldbach Conjecture we've had many requests for more information about it and about how our Goldbach calculator works. We answer some of your questions here but the Goldbach conjecture touches on a strange area of maths that may leave you even more curious than before...
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.
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.
In his second article, David Henwood explains the role of mathematics in the design of Hi-Fi loudspeakers.
