How Geodesic Domes Work
You can find eco-friendly, sustainable and locally-made and grown products on shelves in almost every store these days. So perhaps it’s no surprise that some people want to make the buildings themselves more in tune with the environment, [...]
The lighter side of mathematics
Review of Steven G. Krantz’s Mathematical Apocrypha Redux
Mathematicians perform their labours in an abstract space. However, when they do return to planet earth for rest, recuperation and, more often than not, to grab a cup of coffee, [...]
Young scientists work together and win
Broadcom MASTERS, Robert Heckman, Justin Barber, Adriana Monzon, Alicia D’Souza, and Valerie Ding, finalists work together on a team challenge. Credit: Broadcom Foundation
Guests checking into the posh Palomar Hotel in Washington, D.C., [...]
The Strangest Little Things in Nature
When small cannot get any smaller, you enter the quantum world of quarks, photons, and space-time foam. You’re welcome to take a look at this indivisible side of nature, but just remember to leave your common sense at the door.
People [...]
No ‘Simple Theory of Everything’ Inside the Enigmatic E8
The “exceptionally simple theory of everything,” proposed by a surfing physicist in 2007, does not hold water, says Emory mathematician Skip Garibaldi.
Garibaldi, a rock climber in his spare time, did the math to disprove the [...]
New Teaching Tools Aid Visually Impaired Students in Learning Math
Mastering mathematics can be daunting for many children, but researchers have found that children with visual impairments face disproportionate challenges learning math, and by the time they reach the college level, they are significantly [...]
Mathematicians Solve 140-Year-Old Boltzmann Equation
Pennsylvania mathematicians have found solutions to a 140-year-old, 7-dimensional equation that were not known to exist for more than a century despite its widespread use in modeling the behavior of gases.
The study, part historical journey [...]
Species Distribution Models Can Exaggerate Differences in Environmental Requirements
Separate species that live in radically different environments don’t necessarily also have different ecological niches. This is the finding of a study investigating the accuracy of current statistical tests that use models of geographic [...]
Bizarre Matter Could Find Use in Quantum Computers
There are enticing new findings in the search for materials that support fault-tolerant quantum computing. New results from Rice University and Princeton University indicate that a bizarre state of matter that acts like a particle with [...]
Sum of Digits of Prime Numbers Is Evenly Distributed: New Mathematical Proof of Hypothesis
On average, there are as many prime numbers for which the sum of decimal digits is even as prime numbers for which it is odd. This hypothesis, first made in 1968, has recently been proven by researchers from the Institut de Mathématiques [...]
