Puzzle
Article
Understanding uncertainty: Visualising probabilities
Probabilities and statistics: they are everywhere, but they are hard to understand and can be counter-intuitive. So what's the best way of communicating them to an audience that doesn't have the time, desire, or background to get stuck into the numbers? This article explores modern visualisation techniques and finds that the right picture really can be worth a thousand words.
News story
Diffusion plays by the rules
Whenever you smell the lovely smell of fresh coffee or drop a tea bag into hot water you're benefiting from diffusion: the fact that particles moving at random under the influence of thermal energy spread themselves around. It's this process that wafts coffee particles towards your nose and allows the tea to spread around the water. Diffusion underlies a huge number of processes and it has been studied intensively for over 150 years. Yet it wasn't until very recently that one of the most important assumptions of the underlying theory was confirmed in an experiment.
Article
Maths behind the rainbow
Keats complained that a mathematical explanation of rainbows robs them of their magic, conquering "all mysteries by rule and line". But rainbow geometry is just as elegant as the rainbows themselves.
News story
Join the celebration of mind!
It's 21st of October and for puzzle lovers this can only mean one thing: the G4G Celebration of mind. This annual party celebrates the legacy of Martin Gardner, magician, writer and father of recreational maths, with mathemagical events in his honour happening all over the world.
News story
Shattering crystal symmetries
In 1982 Dan Shechtman discovered a crystal that would revolutionise chemistry. He has just been awarded the 2011 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his discovery — but has the Nobel committee missed out a chance to honour a mathematician for his role in this revolution as well?
News story
Exploding stars clinch Nobel Prize
This year's Nobel Prize in Physics was awarded for a discovery that proved Einstein wrong and right at the same time.
Puzzle
2011 in fours
Can you make 2011 out of 4s?
Collection
Mathematics and the nature of reality
How many universes are there? What has made us into who we are? Is there absolute truth? These are difficult questions, but mathematics has something to say about each of them. It can probe the physical reality that surrounds us, shed light on human interaction and psychology, and it answers, as well as raises, many of the philosophical questions our minds have allowed us to dream up. On this page we bring together articles and podcasts that examine what mathematics can say about the nature of the reality we live in.
News story
Countdown to the Higgs?
Are we close to finding the Higgs? Ben Allanach explains it is not about catching a glimpse of the beast itself, but instead keeping a careful count of the evidence it leaves behind.
Article
A fly walks round a football
What makes a perfect football? Anyone who plays or simply watches the game could quickly list the qualities. The ball must be round, retain its shape, be bouncy but not too lively and, most importantly, be capable of impressive speeds. We find out that this last point is all down to the ball's surface, the most prized research goal in ball design.
Article
Meet the gyroid
What do butterflies, ketchup, microcellular structures, and plastics have in common? It's a curious minimal surface called the gyroid.