Mathematics

Magazine articles on mathematics.

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Science News November 1, 2003 Ivars Peterson	Strolling Down Mobius Lane The geometry of the Mobius band has great potential as an architectural form -- one that is difficult to investigate even with the aid of digital technologies.
Science News October 25, 2003 Ivars Peterson	Seven-Game World Series In professional baseball's World Series, the championship is decided in a best-of-seven format. The first team to win four games gets the pennant. Curiously, series that go on for the full seven games appear to occur more often than simple probability arguments would suggest.
Science News October 18, 2003 Ivars Peterson	Election Reversals Strange things can happen in elections. Some of that strangeness arises out of inevitable quirks in election procedures, especially when more than two candidates are involved.
Science News October 11, 2003 Ivars Peterson	Goldbach Computations Goldbach's conjecture that every even number larger than 2 is the sum of two prime numbers remains unproven, but recent research may provide some insight.
Science News October 4, 2003 Ivars Peterson	A Magic Knight's Tour For as long as chessboards have existed, there have been puzzles involving chessboards and chess pieces. Some of the most enduring conundrums involve knights.
Science News September 27, 2003 Ivars Peterson	The Bias of Random-Number Generators Researchers in Germany have provided some mathematical insight into why many random-number generators give wrong results in so-called cluster Monte Carlo simulations and related computational experiments.
Science News September 20, 2003 Ivars Peterson	Rolling with Reuleaux Amazingly, the circle isn't the only shape that would work safely as a manhole cover. In fact, any shape of constant width would do, and there are infinitely many such shapes. The simplest example is the Reuleaux triangle, named after distinguished mechanical engineer Franz Reuleaux.
Science News September 13, 2003 Ivars Peterson	Trimathlon Palindromes The topic of number palindromes comes up in an entertaining new book called TriMathlon: A Workout Beyond the School Curriculum.
Science News September 6, 2003 Ivars Peterson	Pennant Races and Magic Numbers It's getting close to the end of the regular baseball season. Fanatic fans track not only which team is in first place or in position for a wild-card berth in the playoffs but also the number of games a team must win to avoid elimination. The calculation of a "magic" number is interesting.
Science News August 30, 2003 Ivars Peterson	Hyperbolic Five Dutch graphic artist M.C. Escher devised many highly original schemes in his attempts to capture the concept of infinity visually. In some cases, he took advantage of the peculiarities of hyperbolic geometry to create an illusion of infinity.
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