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3 votes
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Happy Tau/2 day everyone!
22 votes -
The oldest unsolved problem in math. Do odd perfect numbers exist?
11 votes -
Citation cartels help some mathematicians—and their universities—climb the rankings
8 votes -
Y'all are nerds (according to math)
8 votes -
Egyptian fractions and the greedy algorithm
6 votes -
What is a math department worth?
25 votes -
A brief history of tricky mathematical tiling
10 votes -
Maths anxiety
12 votes -
The humbling of the maths snobs
10 votes -
Can YOU win rock, paper, scissors against Grey? 99.9999999% will fail.
40 votes -
Polyhedra world
8 votes -
Quantum Computing Since Democritus
7 votes -
The Lindy Effect (Toby Ord)
3 votes -
The early history of counting
6 votes -
Knot theory: How the most useless branch of math could save your life
15 votes -
Are there politics in mathematics?
Curious if there are movements within the governance or research pertaining to the field that act to promote or suppress certain ideas? Was watching the “Infinity explained in 5 different levels”...
Curious if there are movements within the governance or research pertaining to the field that act to promote or suppress certain ideas? Was watching the “Infinity explained in 5 different levels” and thought… maybe there are trends for or against interpretations and/or abstractions that get a rise in people…
33 votes -
Steffen's polyhedron is a flexible concave polyhedron. Euler thought such a shape was impossible. I also show infinitesimally flexible polyhedrons and bistable polyhedrons.
13 votes -
The Fibonacci Matrix
12 votes -
Seximal: a better way to count
24 votes -
The network of collaboration among rappers and its community structure
9 votes -
History of transcendental numbers
7 votes -
The spool paradox
4 votes -
UK hobbyist discovers new unique shapes, stunning mathematicians
17 votes -
The derivative isn't what you think it is
8 votes -
An aperiodic monotile exists!
21 votes -
The story behind the Packing Chromatic paper
5 votes -
Once a millennium alignment of all three norths
5 votes -
How do fireflies flash in sync? Studies suggest a new answer.
3 votes -
Why are quintic equations not solvable? - the Galois theory approach
3 votes -
Penrose Unilluminable Room is a room with mirrored walls that can't be fully illuminated by a single point source of light
3 votes -
The hyperbolic geometry of DMT experiences
7 votes -
Repulsive Curves
4 votes -
Why everyone ignored the world's best mathematician
4 votes -
A mathematician explains what Foundation gets right about predicting the future
5 votes -
I need cool facts about huge numbers
So, my 5-year-old nephew is obsessed with huge numbers, especially named numbers such as googol, duodecillion, and centillion. The other day I spent some time reciting these numbers to him, and...
So, my 5-year-old nephew is obsessed with huge numbers, especially named numbers such as googol, duodecillion, and centillion. The other day I spent some time reciting these numbers to him, and trying (and failing) to describe them. What I need are some cool facts about these numbers, such as "there are 1 quadrillion cat hairs in the world", or "there are not enough stars in the universe to fill one googol".
Besides math, his main interests are super-heroes and, apparently, cars.
I'm not a math or physics guy, so hopefully you guys can help me cheat :P
12 votes -
Bertrand's Paradox (with 3blue1brown)
1 vote -
Alice, Bob, and the average shadow of a cube
4 votes -
Hiding images in plain sight: the physics of magic windows
5 votes -
Lehmer Factor Stencils: A paper factoring machine before computers
2 votes -
Analytic Number Theory book club ending today
3 votes -
Our next trip to integer partitions
2 votes -
Our trip to the prime number theorem
9 votes -
Could you avoid being hit by a laser if you were in a room of mirrors?
2 votes -
Squaring primes: Why all prime numbers >3 squared are one off a multiple of 24
10 votes -
The simplest math problem no one can solve
10 votes -
Three months in Monte Carlo
4 votes -
I need help with a story that involves math
I'm creating the concept for a story called The Little Differences. It's about an accountant that, one day, out of the blue, notices that a certain calculation is producing a slightly wrong...
I'm creating the concept for a story called The Little Differences. It's about an accountant that, one day, out of the blue, notices that a certain calculation is producing a slightly wrong result. Barely noticeable, nothing world-changing,
He runs it on the computer, tries different software, a physical calculator... everything gives a result that's a little off. When he checks on paper himself, he gets the correct result. But, to his surprise, everyone else tells him that he's the one that's off, and that the incorrect result is actually perfectly sound.
I need something that makes sense, mathematically. The weird result must be something that really is wrong, and not just something that programs sometimes get wrong (I don't want it to be explained at all... I mean, the reason why it is occurring must not be something easily reducible to some well-known malfunction). But it must also be minor enough for someone to miss, something that wouldn't really cause much trouble in the real world (is that possible? IDK).
Lastly: it must be something that I'm able to explain (on some level) to a non-math reader.
So, Tildes math wizzes, what you suggest? :D
17 votes -
Before you answer, consider the opposite possibility
8 votes -
The unparalleled genius of John von Neumann
13 votes