description the octomatics project is about a new number system which has a lot of advantages over our old decimal system. the name comes from the… Read more “Octomatics”
Category: Mathematics
The Koch Snowflake
A fractal, also known as the Koch island, which was first described by Helge von Koch in 1904. It is built by starting with an equilateral triangle,… Read more “The Koch Snowflake”
The golden ratio manifesting in nature
The universe may be chaotic and unpredictable, but it’s also a highly organized physical realm bound by the laws of mathematics. One of the most fundamental (and… Read more “The golden ratio manifesting in nature”
Laplace’s Equation, Mathematical Key to … Everything
Physics has its own Rosetta Stones. They’re ciphers, used to translate seemingly disparate regimes of the universe. They tie pure math to any branch of physics your heart… Read more “Laplace’s Equation, Mathematical Key to … Everything”
A peculiar pattern in prime numbers
Prime numbers, divisible only by 1 and themselves, hate to repeat themselves. They prefer not to mimic the final digit of the preceding prime, mathematicians have discovered.… Read more “A peculiar pattern in prime numbers”
Ancient Babylon figured out forerunner of calculus
Tracking and recording the motion of the sun, the moon, and the planets as they paraded across the desert sky, ancient Babylonian astronomers used simple arithmetic to… Read more “Ancient Babylon figured out forerunner of calculus”
The Rolling Shutter Phenomenon
I remember seeing the photo above on Flickr once, and having my brain melt slightly from trying to figure out what went wrong. The issue was… Read more “The Rolling Shutter Phenomenon”
Magnetic Resonance Imaging
A familiarity with basic electromagnetic properties will assist the reader of this text. A detailed introduction to electromagnetism is beyond the scope of this appendix, but a… Read more “Magnetic Resonance Imaging”
The Far Ends of a New Universal Law
Imagine an archipelago where each island hosts a single tortoise species and all the islands are connected — say by rafts of flotsam. As the tortoises interact… Read more “The Far Ends of a New Universal Law”
Life Is a Braid in Spacetime
Excuse me, but what’s the time?” I’m guessing that you, like me, are guilty of having asked this question, as if it were obvious that there is… Read more “Life Is a Braid in Spacetime”
Maths whizz solves a master’s riddle
A mathematical puzzle that resisted solution for 80 years — including computerized attempts to crack it — seems to have yielded to a single mathematician. Terence Tao,… Read more “Maths whizz solves a master’s riddle”
Parallel Universes Is Not Just Math: It Can Be Tested
The existence of parallel universes may seem like something cooked up by science fiction writers, with little relevance to modern theoretical physics. But the idea that we… Read more “Parallel Universes Is Not Just Math: It Can Be Tested”