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Farewell to the Fractional Foot
This post originally appeared at scientificamerican.com.
What an exciting year it has been for units of measure! (Granted, it doesn’t take a lot to be an exciting year for units of measure.) In May, the kilogram got a makeover. The old standard, a piece of platinum-iridium alloy housed at the International Bureau of Weights and Measures in Fr [...]
It’s Factoradical!
This post originally appeared on scientificamerican.com.
The word “factoradic” jumped out to me when I peeked over a new math friend’s shoulder and saw it in the title of the paper she was revising. What a great word! I had no idea what it meant.
My new friend showed me with an example: the number 2019 is 2(6!)+4(5!)+4(4!)+2!+1. Or more forma [...]
Hilbert Walked So the Clay Institute ...
This post originally appeared on scientificamerican.com.
I’ve been reading up on Hilbert’s problems recently. They’re the 23 problems presented by German mathematician David Hilbert at the International Congress of Mathematicians held in Paris in 1900. (To be more precise, Hilbert presented 10 of them in a talk at the congress. The full list [...]
Law & Order: MVT
This post first appeared on scientificamerican.com.
In the criminal justice system, velocity-based offenses are considered especially unimportant. In New York, the dedicated detectives who investigate these minor misdemeanors are members of an elite squad known as the Moving Violation Team. These are their stories.
[Open with aerial shot of t [...]
An Airtight Proof That There Are More...
This post first appeared at scientificamerican.com.
In our latest episode of My Favorite Theorem, my cohost Kevin Knudson and I talked with Bates College mathematician Adriana Salerno about one of the prettiest theorems there is, Georg Cantor’s proof that there are more real numbers than there are whole numbers. You can listen at kpknudson.co [...]
Ping-Pong for Introverts
This post originally appeared on scientificamerican.com.
Ping-pong is great, but there’s a catch: you have to play with someone else. What is a committed introvert to do?
You could always hit the ball against some fixed object, but as Mitch Hedberg observed about tennis (easily generalized to other hit-a-ball games), you’ll never be as good a [...]
How Quickly Can You Fill Up a Circle?
This post originally appeared on scientificamerican.com.
Michael Boshernitzan, a math professor at my graduate school alma mater, Rice University, passed away last week. I took one class with him, but he had a larger impact in my life as my spouse Jon Chaika’s advisor. They had a wonderful advisor-student relationship, and I know Jon especial [...]
Young People’s Singing flyers
This is a place where Utah Sacred Harp singers can find copies of a flyer and a poster for the all-day singing we are hosting at the end of September.
Flyer (prints 2 per page)
Poster (prints 1 per page)
Lots of people in Utah are looking for a family-friendly, free activity that engages the body, mind, and spirit and lets them connect with o [...]
In Praise of Chicago’s Hypotenu...
This post originally appeared at scientificamerican.com.
My neighborhood isn’t exactly sleepy, but the traffic isn’t too bad. Sometimes I can even cross intersections diagonally while I take a walk. On one recent walk, I started wondering how much distance I save myself with my little hypotenuse trick, so when I got home I measured our [...]
Mathematical Mondegreens
This post originally appeared at scientificamerican.com.
I transcribe every episode of My Favorite Theorem, the podcast I cohost with Kevin Knudson. It’s important for accessibility (and yes, I do judge you if you publish a podcast with no transcript, especially if you have a decent budget), but I’ve also found that a lot of hearing people pr [...]
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