Articles

Outer space: You guessed it

If you are a flower then April is allegedly the cruellest month, but if you are a student of any sort then I'm sure you would have picked June.

How does your garden grow?

The division of plant cells is governed by their shape – just one example of how maths may reveal the fundamental laws underlying biology.

Information, decisions and bits

A brief introduction to bits and why they're not the same as 0s and 1s.

The physics of elementary particles: Part II

What are the mysteries that still remain in particle physics?

The physics of elementary particles: Part I

It's amazing to think that our world is based on a handful of fundamental particles and forces. Find out how it all fits together.

Slow down, Universe!

The Universe's expansion may not be accelerating as fast as we thought.

The future of proof

Will computers ever replace human mathematicians?

Why we want proof

What are mathematical proofs, why do we need them and what can they say about sheep?

Sexual statistics

David Spiegelhalter's new book Sex by numbers takes a statistical peek into the nation's bedrooms. In this interview he tells us some of his favourite stories from the book. Read the article or watch the video!

Information: Baby steps

If I tell you that it's Monday today, then you know it's not any of the other six days of the week. Perhaps the information content of my statement should be measured in terms of the number of all the other possibilities it excludes? Back in the 1920s this consideration led to a very simple formula to measure information.

Information is sophistication

Kolmogorov complexity gives a high value to strings of symbols that are essentially random. But isn't randomness essentially meaningless? Should a measure of information assign a low value to it? The concept of sophistication addresses this question.