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Plus 1000 — Mathematical lives

How does complexity arise from simplicity?

The flocking behaviour of birds, the spread of diseases and the Cuban missile crisis — all of these and much more can be modelled mathematically. In our second teacher package we bring together all Plus articles on mathematical modelling, ready for use in classroom discussions or students projects.

A review of a book as good as this must either repeat the positive adjectives other reviewers have used, or require a very large thesaurus.

Imagine that on your first day training to be a builder you are given a set of toy blocks with which to build a model house.

Given that 14 billion years have elapsed since the birth of the Universe and that the cosmos contains a mind-boggling 10²⁴ stars, can Earth really be the only planet in the entire Universe to contain life?

The movie is based on one of the best mathematical tales ever written. Inhabiting a two-dimensional world populated by polygons and ruled by circular tyrants, a bright young hexagon, through sheer mathematical willpower, imagines a third dimension.

Penguin eggs are not something you'd normally associate with maths, but they are right there on the archives of the Smith Institute, an organisation helping businesses use maths to solve their problems. Claudia Centazzo tells us about her role at the institute, selling maths to unsuspecting business people.

Phil Wilson continues our series on the life and work of Leonhard Euler, who would have turned 300 this year. This article looks at the calculus of variations and a mysterious law of nature that has caused some scientists to reach out for god.

How did we evolve our capacity for maths? Does maths piggy-back on our ability for language, or is it a completely separate faculty? Is it dependent on culture? Plus spoke to the cognitive psychologist Rosemary Varley to find some answers.