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.
Light's identity crisis
Zero thinking
"Nothing is more interesting than nothing" - or so says Ian Stewart, Professor of Mathematics at Warwick University. Many people have difficulty with the concept of zero. In fact, it has only really been used for the last 1500 years or so.
Mathematical mysteries: Goldbach revisited
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...
The magical maze
Mathematics is a maze, according to Ian Stewart at the Royal Institutions Christmas Lecture.
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.
Designing loudspeakers
In his second article, David Henwood explains the role of mathematics in the design of Hi-Fi loudspeakers.
Natural frequencies and music
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.
Editorial
- What's in a name?
- Disaster
Mathematical mysteries: twin primes
We know there is infinitely many primes, but are there infinitely many twin primes?