Article
Trisecting an angle with origami
How to solve an ancient problem in a few folds.
Article
Five Martin Gardner eye-openers involving squares and cubes
This week would have been the 100th birthday of Martin Gardner, who is deservedly credited with turning on several generations of people worldwide to the pleasures of maths! To mark the occasion here are some favourite puzzles that, apart from being fun, also lead to some serious maths.
Article
Making a right angle the Maya way
The Mayan civilisation brought forth many great things — including this clever way of making a right angle.
News story
Maryam Mirzakhani: counting curves
Maryam Mirzakhani is being honoured for her "rare combination of superb technical ability, bold ambition, far-reaching vision, and deep curiosity".
Article
Kissing the curve
Curves bring great beauty to our world. But how curvy is a curve?
Article
Blink and you'll miss it: The free kick in football (part I)
Free kicks deliver much drama. But how should strikers approach them and how does the design on the ball matter?
Article
Circles rolling on circles
Imagine a circle with radius 1 cm rolling completely along the circumference of a circle with radius 4 cm. How many rotations did the smaller circle make? Be prepared for a surprise!
Article
Polar power
Like spirals and flowers? Then you'll love polar coordinates and the pretty pictures they allow you to draw!
Article
3D printing mathematics
Saul Schleimer and Henry Segerman show off some of their beautiful 3D printed mathematical structures.
News story
Watch out, it's behind you!
The Plus team's vehicle of choice is the bicycle, so we're particularly pleased about an announcement that hit the news this month: a clever car mirror that eliminates the dreaded blind spot has been given a patent in the US. The mirror was designed by the mathematician Andrew Hicks, of Drexel University, after years of puzzling over the problem.
Article
Bridges, string art and Bézier curves
The Jerusalem Chords Bridge, Israel, was built to make way for the city's light rail train system. Its design took into consideration more than just utility — it is a work of art, designed as a monument. Its beauty rests not only in the visual appearance of its criss-cross cables, but also in the mathematics that lies behind it. So let's take a deeper look at it.
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.