Articles

  • article

    Life as we don't know it

    Physicist and cosmologist Paul Davies has made an unusual move into the infant discipline of astrobiology. He tells Plus about his interest in the big questions: what is life, how would we recognise aliens - and are they all around us?
  • article

    Chaos in the brain

    Saying that someone is a chaotic thinker might seem like an insult - but, according to Lewis Dartnell, it could be that the mathematical phenomenon of chaos is a crucial part of what makes our brains work.
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    Cracking codes, part II

    In the second of two articles, Artur Ekert visits the strange subatomic world and investigates the possibility of unbreakable quantum cryptography.
  • article

    The magical mathematics of music

    According to Shakespeare, music is the food of love. But Jeffrey Rosenthal follows Galileo's observation that the entire universe is written in the language of mathematics - and that includes music.
  • article

    Editorial, Maths education

    • Wisdom from above - An intriguing debate in the House of Lords on standards in maths education
    • Readers' corner - How many computers does the world need?
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    Cracking codes

    In the first of two articles, Artur Ekert takes a tour through the history of codes and the prospects for truly unbreakable quantum cryptography.