News from the world of Maths
More than a century after the death of its inventor, the world's first computer printer has finally been constructed at the Science Museum in London.
In 1998, Goldbach's Conjecture was shown by computer to be true for even numbers up to 400,000,000,000,000. In addition, some progress has been made towards formally proving the conjecture. As of this year, mathematicians with Goldbach fever have some extra incentive for their labours.
Up until the late 1990s, astronomers couldn't be certain that any planets existed outside our solar system. These days, not only are astronomers confident that planets are out there, but new ones are being discovered all the time.
Around the country, maths is set to have a high profile this year with the launch of a new initiative.
In a major and expensive setback for NASA's Mars program, both the Mars Climate Orbiter and Mars Polar Lander spacecraft appear to have been lost. Soberingly, while the fate of the Mars Polar Lander is unclear, it appears that the Mars Climate Orbiter was lost due to a simple mathematical error.
Australians have a reputation for being fond of their beer. Some Aussie scientists from Sydney are so fond of it that they've actually solved the age-old puzzle of why the bubbles in a glass of Guinness appear to sink rather than rise.
