Mathematics

Young Biologists Can Develop Their Maths Skills, If You Have Examples

Biologists of the coming decade are going to need to know a whole lot of physics, math and statistics. Everyone is going to need to do more math, really. The days when it was just a language science used here and there is long gone. ...

Article - News Staff - Oct 2 2012 - 11:30am

The Mathematics Of Autumn's Effect On Global Warming

Leaves store carbon. In the spring, leaves soak up carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, converting the gas into organic carbon compounds, and then in the autumn, trees shed those leaves, which decompose in the soil as they are eaten by microbes. Over time, ...

Article - News Staff - Oct 3 2012 - 8:43pm

In Theoretical Mathematics, Breaking The Speed Of Light Is Easy

In a pinch and need to go back in time or flee to Alpha Centauri in a hurry?  Find a mathematician, quick! If only Einstein's theory of special relativity were extended to work beyond the speed of light, things would be easy.   But of course Einstein& ...

Article - News Staff - Oct 14 2012 - 5:00am

The Music Of The Primes- Literally

The link between mathematics and music has always been there- our ears hear in frequencies and even before those frequencies were known in physics terms, ancient philosopher-scientists had determined that the language of math linked areas as remote as plan ...

Article - News Staff - Oct 24 2012 - 5:43pm

Do Biases And Analytical Improvements Of Polls Help Predict Elections?

The most startling thing to me about the election of 2012 was how spookily accurate polls were.  Social scientists in one camp want to dismiss determinism while the other camp has biology-envy but either the deterministic side got a big boost on Tuesday or ...

Article - Hank Campbell - Nov 14 2012 - 5:40pm

Paradoxes, Math And Why You Should Never Sit Ben Roethlisberger

We all love paradoxes, those seemingly consistent logical brain-teasers where we sort out what can and should and might and must happen and that invariably lead to self-contradictory arguments. If you are like me and my friends, there is nothing you enjoy ...

Article - Hank Campbell - Nov 13 2012 - 10:49pm

Statistical Physics Attacks St. Petersburg: Paradox Resolved

In the history of statistics, economy and decision theory, the St. Petersburg paradox plays a key role. This lottery problem goes back a full three centuries to the mathematician Nicolas Bernoulli who first formulated the problem in 1713. Twenty five years ...

Article - Johannes Koelman - Nov 19 2012 - 12:03pm

Divine Patterns? Ramanujan's Magical Mind Gets A Math Formula

Srinivasa Ramanujan was a self-taught Indian mathematician known for intuiting extraordinary numerical patterns and connections without using proofs or modern mathematical tools. Instead, the devout Hindu genius said that his findings were divine and were ...

Article - News Staff - Dec 17 2012 - 11:01am

The Year for Mathematics of Planet Earth 2013: a call to bloggers

2013 will be the year of Mathematics of Planet Earth. This global initiative was spearheaded by Professor Christiane Rousseau of the University of Montreal, and it was fitting that the first national launch of MPE2013 was held in Canada on the 7th December ...

Blog Post - Richard Mankiewicz - Dec 22 2012 - 6:36am

Rational Suckers

Why do people skip the queue, obstruct, cause traffic jams, and create delays for everyone? Who are these anonymous creatures lacking cooperation skills? And more importantly: are you sure others don't classify you as such? ...

Article - Johannes Koelman - Jan 1 2013 - 11:31am