Articles

  • article

    Eat, drink and be merry: making sure it's safe

    This article is part of a two-part series exploring ways in which mathematics comes into food, and especially into food safety and health. In this part we'll look at how maths can tell us the safest way to cook food.
  • article

    Outer space: A question of tactics

    In many sports a particular tactical conundrum arises. The team captain has to choose the best order in which to use a group of players or set-plays in the face of unknown counter choices by the opposition. Do you want to field the strongest players first to raise morale or play them last to produce a late run for victory? John D. Barrow shows that randomness holds the answer.
  • news

    A new phase in mathematics - the work of Stanislav Smirnov

    Rachel Thomas

    Suppose you throw an equal number of white and black balls into a rectangular box which is, say, 30 balls long, 10 balls wide and is now 5 layers deep in balls. What it the probability that you have a run of touching white balls from one end of the box to the other?

    Stanislav Smirnov

    Stanislav Smirnov

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  • article

    How to make a perfect plane

    Two lines in a plane always intersect in a single point ... unless the lines are parallel. This annoying exception is constantly inserting itself into otherwise simple mathematical statements. Burkard Polster and Marty Ross explain how to get around the problem.
  • article

    Understanding uncertainty: Small but lethal

    Comparing and communicating small lethal risks is a tricky business, yet this is what many of us are faced with in our daily lives. One way of measuring these risks is to use a quantity called the micromort. David Spiegelhalter and Mike Pearson investigate.
  • article

    Winning odds

    When you flip a coin we assume it has equal chance of coming up head or tails, so any coin flipping game should be a fair one. But Yutaka Nishiyama and Steve Humble can give you the winning advantage.
  • article
    fractal

    Fractal music

    Fractals are a treat for your eyes, but what about your ears? Dmitry Kormann, a composer/keyboardist from São Paulo, Brazil, explains how he integrates fractal-like patterns in the very structure of his music, to obtain beautiful results.
  • article
    scales of justice

    It's a match!

    "It's a match!" cries the CSI. At first glance it might seem that if the police have matched a suspect's DNA to evidence from the crime scene, then the case is closed. But some statistical thinking is required to understand exactly what a match is, and importantly, how juries should assess this as part of the evidence in a trial.

  • article

    Solving the genome puzzle

    The human genome is represented by a sequence of 3 billion As, Cs, Gs, and Ts. With such large numbers, sequencing the entire genome of a complex organism isn't just a challenge in biochemistry. It's a logistical nightmare, which can only be solved with clever algorithms.
  • article

    Modelling cell suicide

    Martino Barenco and Mike Hubank shed light on suicidal cells and a mathematical model that could help fight cancer.