News from the world of Maths
Sequences of numbers can have limits. For example, the sequence 1, 1/2, 1/3, 1/4, ... has the limit 0 and the sequence 0, 1/2, 2/3, 3/4, 4/5, ... has the limit 1. But not all number sequences behave so nicely. Can we still discern some sort of limiting behaviour?
Yesterday we opened the Plus New York office, amidst snow covered streets at the foot of the Empire State building.
On 14 March at 1.59pm GMT, Marcus du Sautoy will host Pi Day Live, an interactive exploration of the number which has fascinated mathematicians throughout the ages. He wants to rediscover pi using ancient and intriguing techniques, and he needs your help!
They've done it again! GIMPS has discovered the largest known prime number: 257,885,161-1. This massive 17,425,170 digit number was discovered thanks to clever distributed computing software that uses idle computer time donated by volunteers.
How would you go about adding up all the integers from 1 to 100? Tap them into a calculator? Write a little computer code? Or look up the general formula for summing integers?
Sometimes you just can't argue with the evidence. If a large sample of
very ill people got better after dancing naked at full moon, then surely
the dance works. But hang on a second. Before you jump to conclusions, you need to rule
out a statistical phenomenon called regression to the mean.
Scientists find a new method of storing information in DNA.