Articles

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    Editorial

    • Plus new writers award - Maths is the language of the universe, so what have you got to say?
    • Reader's corner - 6174 and other mysterious numbers.
    • World Cup maths - How Plus can help you with your football.
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    The power of groups

    Groups 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.
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    Gödel and the limits of logic

    When 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.
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    The right spin: how to fly a broken space craft

    On 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.
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    Graphical Methods II: The return of the slime

    In last issue's Graphical methods I Phil Wilson used maths to predict the outcome of a cold war in slug world. In this self-contained article he looks at slug world after the disaster: with only a few survivors and all infra-structure destroyed, which species will take root and how will they develop? Graphs can tell it all.
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    Anything but square: from magic squares to Sudoku

    Get on a commuter train these days and you can virtually see people's brains crunching away at filling the numbers from 1 to 9 into a square grid. As the Sudoku craze shows no sign of slowing, Hardeep Aiden investigates its relatives and predecessors.
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    Symmetry rules

    Everyone knows what symmetry is, and the ability to spot it seems to be hard-wired into our brains. Mario Livio explains how not only shapes, but also laws of nature can be symmetrical, and how this aids our understanding of the universe.
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    Mysterious number 6174

    6174 is a very mysterious number. Yutaka Nishiyama explains why, and how beautiful mathematical oddities can inspire us to discover new mathematics.
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    Editorial

    • What motivates mathematics?
    • Win glory and more as a Plus author!
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    Graphical methods I: Slug wars

    To arm or to disarm? This is the question in Phil Wilson's article, which explores the maths behind a cold war in slug world.