Tag Archives: mathematics

Mathemagic

The following puzzle appeared in the October/November 2023 issue of the AARP member magazine. What’s next? Each number after the first is derived in the same way from the previous number. What is the number that logically follows 66? 1, … Continue reading

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Conway

I am not a mathematician, but I played one on TV in a magazine—Quantum: The Magazine of Math and Science. That is how I learned about John Horton Conway, who passed away this week from complications of COVID-19. Conway wrote … Continue reading

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Quantum

Quantum was a wonderful student magazine published by the National Science Teachers Association from 1990 to 2001. Born in the heady days of perestroika, it was a collaboration with the renowned Russian journal Kvant. Sadly, just at its early adopters were graduating … Continue reading

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Resolution

On December 31, I thought about resolving to be even lazier in 2007 than I was in 2006, but I never got around to it.

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Havoc

While we’re on the subject of insects [ “Spiders aren’t insects!” — “Oh, don’t be such a freaking literalist!” ], here’s an urgent message from Physics Today: In 2005, we all witnessed, via the international media, the devastation that hurricanes … Continue reading

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1101110010110100000

There are 10 types of people in the world: those who understand binary and those who don’t those who are sick of this joke. (Google says there are about 452,00010 instances of it on the web.)

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Attractive

Who would’ve expected to find Lorenz attractors on a box of Godiva chocolates? Here’s a nice Java applet that generates the Lorenz “butterfly.”

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Ones

Laura sent an e-mail to a mutual friend, letting him know about a Terry Jones show on TV this week, The Story of One. Here’s what she got back: Ah yes, one. It’s given us all a lot of trouble. First … Continue reading

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Random?

Of course, nothing’s really random. Nothing comes from nowhere. We’ll use the category “Random” in the slang sense, as in “Where the hell did that come from?” I remember when I had to generate random numbers to pick a couple … Continue reading

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