### Population Projections

The Population Division of the United Nations marked 31 October 2011 as the “Day of Seven Billion”. While that was a publicity gambit, world population is now above this figure and climbing. The global ecosystem is seriously stressed, and climate change is greatly aggravated by the expanding population. Accurate estimates of growth are essential for assessing our future well-being. This week, That’s Maths in The Irish Times ( TM034  ) is about population growth over this century. Continue reading ‘Population Projections’

### A Simple Growth Function

Three Styles of Growth

Early models of population growth represented the number of people as an exponential function of time,

$\displaystyle N(t) = N_0 \exp(t/\tau)$

where ${\tau}$ is the e-folding time. For every period of length ${\tau}$, the population increases by a factor ${e\approx 2.7}$. Exponential growth was assumed by Thomas Malthus (1798), and he predicted that the population would exhaust the food supply within a half-century. Continue reading ‘A Simple Growth Function’

### The Antikythera Mechanism

The article in this week’s That’s Maths column in the Irish Times ( TM033 ) is about the Antikythera Mechanism, which might be called the First Computer.

Two Storms

Two storms, separated by 2000 years, resulted in the loss and the recovery of one of the most amazing mechanical devices made in the ancient world.  The first storm, around 65 BC, wrecked a Roman vessel bringing home loot from Asia Minor. The ship went down near the island of Antikythera, between the Greek mainland and Crete. Continue reading ‘The Antikythera Mechanism’

### The Watermelon Puzzle

An amusing puzzle appears in a recent book by John A. Adam (2013). The answer is very surprising. The book argues in terms of simultaneous equations. A simpler argument, using the diagram below, should make all clear. Continue reading ‘The Watermelon Puzzle’

### Euler’s Gem

This week, That’s Maths in The Irish Times ( TM032  ) is about Euler’s Polyhedron Formula and its consequences.

Euler’s Polyhedron Formula

The highlight of the thirteenth and final book of Euclid’s Elements was the proof that there are just five “Platonic solids”. Recall that a regular polygon is a plane figure with all sides and angles equal, for example a square. By joining identical polygons together, we can form solid bodies called regular polyhedra. Continue reading ‘Euler’s Gem’

### Hyperbolic Triangles and the Gauss-Bonnet Theorem

Poincaré’s half-plane model for hyperbolic geometry comprises the upper half plane ${\mathbf{H} = \{(x,y): y>0\}}$ together with a metric

$\displaystyle d s^2 = \frac { d x^2 + d y^2 } { y^2 } \,.$

It is remarkable that the entire structure of the space ${(\mathbf{H},ds)}$ follows from the metric.
Continue reading ‘Hyperbolic Triangles and the Gauss-Bonnet Theorem’

### Poincare’s Half-plane Model (bis)

In a previous post, we considered Poincaré’s half-plane model for hyperbolic geometry in two dimensions. The half-plane model comprises the upper half plane ${H = \{(x,y): y>0\}}$ together with a metric

$\displaystyle d s^2 = \frac { d x^2 + d y^2 } { y^2 } \,.$

It is remarkable that the entire structure of the space follows from the metric.

In the earlier post, we derived the total curvature by evaluating the Riemann tensor. Here, we compute the curvature directly, using Gauss’s “Remarkable Theorem”.
Continue reading ‘Poincare’s Half-plane Model (bis)’