Articles

If you can't bend it, model it!Learn about the aerodynamics of footballs and perfect your free kick.
Unveiling the Mandelbrot setYou've probably seen pictures of the famed Mandelbrot set and its mysterious cousins, the Julia sets. In this article Robert L. Devaney explores the maths behind these beauties and shows that they're loaded with mathematical meaning.
Outer space: Bridging that gapHow to keep up the suspense
Defying gravity: The uphill rollerWhat goes up must come down — or does it? Find out how to cheat gravity with Julian Havil.
Music and Euclid's algorithmWhat does a mathematician from the 3rd century BC have to do with tuning musical instruments in 17th century Europe? Benjamin Wardhaugh tells us about one of the more unusual places you might find Euclid's algorithm being used.
Graphical methods III: the slugs bounce backIn the last article of this three-part series, Phil Wilson shows how simple graphs can tell you a lot about the economy — and not only in Slugworld.
The Fields Medals 2006The highest honour in maths has been awarded to four mathematicians
Troubled minds and perfect turbulenceVan Gogh paintings mimic the physics that governs turbulence
The power of groupsGroups are some of the most fundamental objects in maths. Take a system of interacting objects and strip it to the bone to see what makes it tick, and very often you're faced with a group. Colva Roney-Dougal takes us into their abstract world and puzzles over a game of Solitaire.
Gödel and the limits of logicWhen Kurt Gödel published his incompleteness theorem in 1931, the mathematical community was stunned: using maths he had proved that there are limits to what maths can prove. This put an end to the hope that all of maths could one day be unified in one elegant theory and had very real implications for computer science. John W Dawson describes Gödel's brilliant work and troubled life.
The right spin: how to fly a broken space craftOn the 25th of May 1997 a dramatic collision tore a hole into the space station Mir and sent it hurtling through space. As NASA astronaut Michael Foale tells Plus, the fate of Mir and its crew hinged on a classical set of equations.