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In 1920, a kindergarten class was asked to describe the biggest number that they could imagine. One child proposed to “write down digits until you get tired”. A more concrete idea was to write a one followed by 100 zeros. This number, which scientists would express as ten to the power 100, was given the name “googol” by its inventor [TM190; or search for “thatsmaths” at irishtimes.com ].
Suppose that, in the course of an investigation, you stumble upon a string of whole numbers. You are convinced that there must be a pattern, but you cannot find it. All you have to do is to type the string into a database called OEIS — or simply “Slone’s” — and, if the string is recognized, an entire infinite sequence is revealed. If the string belongs to several sequences, several choices are offered. OEIS is a great boon to both professional mathematicians and applied scientists in fields like physics, chemistry, astronomy and biology.
The Home page of OEIS: https://oeis.org
Continue reading ‘The Online Encyclopedia of Integer Sequences’
It may seem too much to expect that a person’s geographic origin can be determined from a DNA sample. But, thanks to a mathematical technique called principal component analysis, this can be done with remarkable accuracy. It works by reducing multi-dimensional data sets to just a few variables [TM189; or search for “thatsmaths” at irishtimes.com ].
Predicted locations for more than 1200 individuals, based on DNA markers in their genome (figure from Nature).
Continue reading ‘The Geography of Europe is Mapped in our Genes’
We live in the age of “big data”. Voluminous data collections are mined for information using mathematical techniques. Problems in high dimensions are hard to solve — this is called “the curse of dimensionality”. Dimension reduction is essential in big data science. Many sophisticated techniques have been developed to reduce dimensions and reveal the information buried in mountains of data.
Our lives have been severely restricted in recent months. We are assured that the constraints have been imposed following “the best scientific advice”, but what is the nature of this advice? Among the most important scientific tools used for guidance on the Covid-19 outbreak are mathematical models [TM188; or search for “thatsmaths” at irishtimes.com ].
Prof Philip Nolan, Chairman of IEMAG (Photograph: Tom Honan
Learning calculus at school, we soon find out that while differentiation is relatively easy, at least for simple functions, integration is hard. So hard indeed that, in many cases, it is impossible to find a nice function that is the integral (or anti-derivative) of a given one. Thus, given 
Self-portrait by Dürer when aged 26.
Albrecht Dürer was born in Nuremberg in 1471, third of a family of eighteen children. Were he still living, he would be celebrating his 549th birthday today. Dürer’s artistic genius was clear from an early age, as evidenced by a self-portrait he painted when just thirteen [TM187; or search for “thatsmaths” at irishtimes.com ].
In 1494, Dürer visited Italy, where he travelled for a year. A novel connection between art and mathematics was emerging around that time. By using rules of perspective, artists could represent objects in three-dimensional space on a plane canvas with striking realism. Dürer was convinced that “the new art must be based upon science; in particular, upon mathematics, as the most exact, logical, and graphically constructive of the sciences”.
Continue reading ‘Changing the way that we look at the world’
The development of perspective in the early Italian Renaissance opened the doors of perception just a little wider. Perspective techniques enabled artists to create strikingly realistic images. Among the most notable were Piero della Francesca and Leon Battista Alberti, who invented the method of perspective drawing.
School of Athens, a fresco painted by Raphael in 1509-11 illustrates the power of perspective.
John Casey (1820-1891).
Next Tuesday – 12th May – is the 200th anniversary of the birth of John Casey, a notable Irish geometer. Casey was born in 1820 in Kilbeheny, Co Limerick. He was educated in nearby Mitchelstown, where he showed great aptitude for mathematics and also had a gift for languages. He became a mathematics teacher, first in Tipperary Town and later in Kilkenny [TM186; or search for “thatsmaths” at irishtimes.com ].
We open with a simple mathematical puzzle that is easily solved using only elementary reasoning. Imagine a party where some guests are friends while others are unacquainted. Then the following is always true:
No matter how many guests there are at the party, there are
always two guests with the same number of friends present.
If you wish, try proving this before reading on. The proof is outlined at the end of this post.
Complete graphs with 6 to 10 vertices.
John H Conway in 2009
[image Denise Applewhite, Princeton University].
John Horton Conway was a charismatic character, something of a performer, always entertaining his fellow-mathematicians with clever magic tricks, memory feats and brilliant mathematics. A Liverpudlian, interested from early childhood in mathematics, he studied at Gonville & Caius College in Cambridge, earning a BA in 1959. He obtained his PhD five years later, after which he was appointed Lecturer in Pure Mathematics.
In 1986, Conway moved to Princeton University, where he was Professor of Mathematics and John Von Neumann Professor in Applied and Computational Mathematics. He was awarded numerous honours during his career. Conway enjoyed emeritus status from 2013 until his death just two weeks ago on 11 April.
In its initial stages, the Covid-19 pandemic grew at an exponential rate. What does this mean? The number of infected people in a country is growing exponentially if it increases by a fixed multiple R each day: if N people are infected today, then R times N are infected tomorrow. The size of the growth-rate R determines how rapidly the virus is spreading. An example should make this clear [TM185 or search for “thatsmaths” at irishtimes.com].
“Flattening the curve” [image from ECDC].
Ross-Littlewood Paradox [Image from Steemit website: here. ]
Video games generate worldwide annual sales of about $150 billion. With millions of people confined at home with time to spare, the current pandemic may benefit the industry. At the core of a video game is a computer program capable of simulating a range of phenomena in the real world or in a fantasy universe, of generating realistic imagery and of responding to the actions and reactions of the players. At every level, mathematics is crucial [TM184 or search for “thatsmaths” at irishtimes.com].
League of Legends, from Riot Games.
Continue reading ‘The Mathematics of Fair Play in Video Games’
Typical Comic-book `bang’ mark [Image from vectorstock ].
which is approximately 
Continue reading ‘Bang! Bang! Bang! Explosively Large Numbers’
The illness is called Covid-19 but the virus is known as SARS-CoV-2 (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome coronavirus 2) [Image from US agency Centers for Disease Control and Prevention].
There is widespread anxiety about the threat of the Covid-19 virus. Mathematics now plays a vital role in combating the spread of epidemics, and will help us to bring this outbreak under control. For centuries, mathematics has been used to solve problems in astronomy, physics and engineering. But now biology and medicine have become topics of mathematical investigation, and applications in these areas are certain to expand in the future [TM183 or search for “thatsmaths” at irishtimes.com].
How rapidly will the viral infection spread? How long will it remain a problem? When will it reach a peak and how quickly will it die out? Most important, what effective steps can we can take to control the outbreak and to minimize the damage caused? When vaccines become available, what is the optimal strategy for their use? Models provide valuable evidence for decision makers.
Continue reading ‘Covid-19: Modelling the evolution of a viral outbreak’
In his study of humane methods of hanging, Samuel Haughton (1866) considered the earliest recorded account of execution by hanging (see Haughton’s Drop on this site). In the twenty-second book of the Odyssey, Homer described how the twelve faithless handmaids of Penelope “lay by night enfolded in the arms of the suitors” who were vying for Penelope’s hand in marriage. Her son Telemachus, with the help of his comrades, hanged all twelve handmaids on a single rope.
Continue reading ‘Samuel Haughton and the Twelve Faithless Hangmaids’
Samuel Haughton (1821-1897).
Samuel Haughton was born in Co. Carlow in 1821. He entered Trinity College Dublin aged just sixteen and graduated in 1843. He was elected a fellow in 1844 and was appointed professor of geology in 1851. He took up the study of medicine and graduated as a Doctor of Medicine in 1862, aged 40 [TM182 or search for “thatsmaths” at irishtimes.com].
In addition to his expertise in geology and medicine, Haughton was a highly talented applied mathematician. His mathematical investigations included the study of the motion of solid and fluid bodies, solar radiation, climatology, animal mechanics and ocean tides. One of his more bizarre applications of mathematics was to demonstrate a humane method of execution by hanging, by lengthening the drop to ensure instant death.
A simple transformation with remarkable properties was used by Nikolai Zhukovsky around 1910 to study the flow around aircraft wings. It is defined by
and is usually called the Joukowsky Map. We begin with a discussion of the theory of fluid flow in two dimensions. Readers familiar with 2D potential flow may skip to the section Joukowsky Airfoil.
Visualization of airflow around a Joukowsky airfoil. Image generated using code on this website.
The irregular distribution of the first digits of numbers in data-bases provides a valuable tool for fraud detection. A remarkable rule that applies to many datasets was accidentally discovered by an American physicist, Frank Benford, who described his discovery in a 1938 paper, “The Law of Anomalous Numbers” [TM181 or search for “thatsmaths” at irishtimes.com].
Continue reading ‘How many numbers begin with a 1? More than 30%!’
Around 1913, while still an undergraduate, American physicist Arthur Compton described an experiment to demonstrate the rotation of the Earth using a simple laboratory apparatus.
If you have ever tried to sleep under a flight-path near an airport, you will know how serious the problem of aircraft noise can be. Aircraft noise is amongst the loudest sounds produced by human activities. The noise is over a broad range of frequencies, extending well beyond the range of hearing. The problem of aviation noise has become more severe as aircraft engines have become more powerful [TM180 or search for “thatsmaths” at irishtimes.com].
Engine inlet of a CFM56-3 turbofan engine on a Boeing 737-400 [image Wikimedia Commons].
Finding the roots of polynomials has occupied mathematicians for many centuries. For equations up to fourth order, there are algebraic expressions for the roots. For higher order equations, many excellent numerical methods are available, but the results are not always reliable.
A 10th-order polynomial (blue) and a slightly perturbed version, with the coefficient of 
Continue reading ‘The Rambling Roots of Wilkinson’s Polynomial’
We take a fresh look at the vector differential operators grad, div and curl. There are many vector identities relating these. In particular, there are two combinations that always yield zero results:
Question: Is there a connection between these identities?
When a guitar string is plucked, we don’t see waves travelling along the string. This is because the ends are fixed. Instead, we see a standing-wave pattern. Standing waves are also found on drum-heads and on the sound-boxes of violins. The shape of a violin strongly affects the quality and purity of the sound, as it determines the mixture of standing wave harmonics that it can sustain [TM179 or search for “thatsmaths” at irishtimes.com].
French postage stamp, issued in 2016, to commemorate the
250th anniversary of the birth of Sophie Germain (1776-1831).
Continue reading ‘The “extraordinary talent and superior genius” of Sophie Germain’
Vector analysis can be daunting for students. The theory can appear abstract, and operators like Grad, Div and Curl seem to be introduced without any obvious motivation. Concrete examples can make things easier to understand. Weather maps, easily obtained on the web, provide real-life applications of vector operators.
Fig. 1. An idealized scalar field representing the mean sea-level atmospheric pressure over the North Atlantic area.
Continue reading ‘Grad, Div and Curl on Weather Maps: a Gateway to Vector Analysis’
Soon it will be time to pack away the fairy lights. If you wish to avoid the knotty task of disentangling them next December, don’t just throw them in a box; roll them carefully around a stout stick or a paper tube. Any long and flexible string or cable, squeezed into a confined volume, is likely to become entangled: just think of garden hoses or the wires of headphones [TM178 or search for “thatsmaths” at irishtimes.com].
Mathematicians have traditionally dealt with convergent series and shunned divergent ones. But, long ago, astronomers found that divergent expansions yield valuable results. If these so-called asymptotic expansions are truncated, the error is bounded by the first term omitted. Thus, by stopping just before the smallest term, excellent approximations may be obtained.
As Christmas approaches, the question of fair sharing comes into focus. Readers can rejoice that there has been a recent breakthrough in cake-cutting theory. Cake cutting may sound limited, but it is important for many practical problems. A cake is a metaphor for a parcel of land to be divided, broadcast frequencies to be allocated, divorce settlements, chores to be done by flatmates, border resolutions or any other valuable or scarce resource to be shared [TM177 or search for “thatsmaths” at irishtimes.com].
Image from https://www.irishcentral.com/%5D
In 1985, cosmonaut Vladimir Dzhanibekov commanded a mission to repair the space station Salyut-7. During the operation, he flicked a wing-nut to remove it. As it left the end of the bolt, the nut continued to spin in space, but every few seconds, it turned over through 
Flipping nut [image from Veritasium].
Although abstract in character, mathematics has concrete origins: the greatest advances have been inspired by the natural world. Recently, a new result in linear algebra was discovered by three physicists trying to understand the behaviour of neutrinos [TM176 or search for “thatsmaths” at irishtimes.com].
Neutrino trails in a bubble chamber [image from Physics World]
Continue reading ‘A New Mathematical Discovery from Neutrino Physics’
One of the most remarkable and important mathematical results obtained by Archimedes was the determination of the volume of a sphere. Archimedes used a technique of sub-dividing the volume into slices of known cross-sectional area and adding up, or integrating, the volumes of the slices. This was essentially an application of a technique that was — close to two thousand years later — formulated as integral calculus.
Cone, sphere and cylinder on the same base. The volumes are in the ratios 1 : 2 : 3 [image from mathigon.org].
When you check in your baggage for a flight, it must be screened before it is allowed on the plane. Baggage screening detects threats within luggage and personal belongings by x-ray analysis as they pass along a conveyor belt. Hold-baggage and passenger screening systems are capable of detecting contraband materials, narcotics, explosives and weapons [TM175 or search for “thatsmaths” at irishtimes.com].
3D X-ray image of baggage [image from Rapiscan Systems ].
Continue reading ‘Airport Baggage Screening with X-Ray Tomography’
Introduction
The circular functions arise from ratios of lengths in a circle. In a similar manner, the elliptic functions can be defined by means of ratios of lengths in an ellipse. Many of the key properties of the elliptic functions follow from simple geometric properties of the ellipse.
Originally, Carl Gustav Jacobi defined the elliptic functions 
He called 
Continue reading ‘Elliptic Trigonometry: Fun with “sun”, “cun” and “dun”’
No one person can have mastery of the entirety of mathematics. The subject has become so vast that the best that can be achieved is a general understanding and appreciation of the main branches together with expertise in one or two areas [TM174 or search for “thatsmaths” at irishtimes.com].
The Princeton Companions to Maths and Applied Maths
Continue reading ‘The Vastness of Mathematics: No One Knows it All’
It is fascinating to watch a top spinning. It seems to defy gravity: while it would topple over if not spinning, it remains in a vertical position as long as it is spinning rapidly.
There are many variations on the simple top. The gyroscope has played a vital role in navigation and in guidance and control systems. Many similar rotating toys have been devised. These include rattlebacks, tippe-tops and the Euler disk. The figure below shows four examples.
(a) Simple top, (b) Rising egg, (c) Tippe-top, (d) Euler disk. [Image from website of Rod Cross.]
Every branch of mathematics has key results that are so
important that they are dubbed fundamental theorems.
The customary view of mathematical research is that of establishing the truth of propositions or theorems by rigorous deduction from axioms and definitions. Mathematics is founded upon axioms, basic assumptions that are taken as true. Logical reasoning is then used to deduce the consequences of those axioms with each major result designated as a theorem.
As each new theorem is proved, it provides a basis for the establishment of further results. The most important and fruitful theorem in each area of maths is often named as the fundamental theorem of that area. Thus, we have the fundamental theorems of arithmetic, algebra and so on. For example, the fundamental theorem of calculus gives the relationship between differential calculus and integral calculus.
Mathematicians are not renowned for their ability to reach the deepest recesses of the human soul. This talent is usually associated with great artists and musicians, and a good poet can move us profoundly with a few well-chosen words [TM173 or search for “thatsmaths” at irishtimes.com].
Irish postage stamp issued in 2005, on the 200th anniversary of the birth of William Rowan Hamilton.
Augustin-Louis Cauchy (1789–1857)
If you love mathematics and have never studied complex function theory, then you are missing something wonderful. It is one of the most beautiful branches of maths, with many amazing results. Don’t be put off by the name: complex does not mean complicated. With elementary calculus and a basic knowledge of imaginary numbers, a whole world of wonder is within your grasp.
In the early nineteenth century, Augustin-Louis Cauchy (1789–1857) constructed the foundations of what became a major new branch of mathematics, the theory of functions of a complex variable.
It is exhilarating to watch a large flock of birds swarming in ever-changing patterns. Swarming is an emergent behaviour, resulting from a set of simple rules followed by each individual animal, bird or fish, without any centralized control or leadership.
A murmuration of starlings at dusk near Ballywilliam, Co Wexford. Photograph: Cyril Byrne.
Continue reading ‘Emergence of Complex Behaviour from Simple Roots’
Given a function 
A rational function with five real zeros and a pole at x = 1.
George Salmon (1819-1904) [Image: MacTutor]
As you pass through the main entrance of Trinity College, the iconic campanile stands before you, flanked, in pleasing symmetry, by two life-size statues. On the right, on a granite plinth is the historian and essayist William Lecky. On the left, George Salmon (1819–1904) sits on a limestone platform.
Salmon was a distinguished mathematician and theologian and Provost of Trinity College. For decades, the two scholars have gazed down upon multitudes of students crossing Front Square. The life-size statue of Salmon, carved from Galway marble by the celebrated Irish sculptor John Hughes, was erected in 1911. Next Wednesday will be the 200th anniversary of Salmon’s birth [TM171 or search for “thatsmaths” at irishtimes.com].
Continue reading ‘George Salmon, Mathematician & Theologian’
The Sacks Spiral.
The prime numbers have presented mathematicians with some of their most challenging problems. They continue to play a central role in number theory, and many key questions remain unsolved.
Order and Chaos
The primes have many intriguing properties. In his article “The first 50 million prime numbers”, Don Zagier noted two contradictory characteristics of the distribution of prime numbers. The first is the erratic and seemingly chaotic way in which the primes “grow like weeds among the natural numbers”. The second is that, when they are viewed in the large, they exhibit “stunning regularity”.
Ronald Fisher in 1913
One hundred years ago, an English lady, Dr Muriel Bristol, amazed some leading statisticians by proving that she could determine by taste the order in which the constituents are poured in a cup of tea. One of the statisticians was Ronald Fisher. The other was William Roach, who was to marry Dr Bristol shortly afterwards.
Many decisions in medicine, economics and other fields depend on carefully designed experiments. For example, before a new treatment is proposed, its efficacy must be established by a series of rigorous tests. Everyone is different, and no one course of treatment is necessarily best in all cases. Statistical evaluation of data is an essential part of the evaluation of new drugs [TM170 or search for “thatsmaths” at irishtimes.com].
Many problems in probability are solved by assuming independence of separate experiments. When we toss a coin, it is assumed that the outcome does not depend on the results of previous tosses. Similarly, each cast of a die is assumed to be independent of previous casts.
However, this assumption is frequently invalid. Draw a card from a shuffled deck and reveal it. Then place it on the bottom and draw another card. The odds have changed: if the first card was an ace, the chances that the second is also an ace have diminished.
The Wilberforce Spring (often called the Wilberforce pendulum) is a simple mechanical device that illustrates the conversion of energy between two forms. It comprises a weight attached to a spring that is free to stretch up and down and to twist about its axis.
Wilberforce spring [image from Wikipedia Commons].}
However, due to a mechanical coupling between the stretching and torsion, there is a link between stretching and twisting motions, and the energy is gradually converted from vertical oscillations to axial motion about the vertical. This motion is, in turn, converted back to vertical oscillations, and the cycle continues indefinitely, in the absence of damping.
The conversion is dependent upon a resonance condition being satisfied: the frequencies of the stretching and twisting modes must be very close in value. This is usually achieved by having small adjustable weights mounted on the pendulum.
There are several videos of a Wilberforce springs in action on YouTube. For example, see here.
Continue reading ‘The curious behaviour of the Wilberforce Spring.’
On the morning of 30 May 1832 a young man stood twenty-five paces from his friend. Both men fired, but only one pistol was loaded. Évariste Galois, a twenty year old mathematical genius, fell to the ground. The cause of Galois’s death is veiled in mystery and speculation. Whether both men loved the same woman or had irreconcilable political differences is unclear. But Galois was abandoned, mortally wounded, on the duelling ground at Gentilly, just south of Paris. By noon the next day he was dead [TM169 or search for “Galois” at irishtimes.com].
French postage stamp issued in 1984.
Continue reading ‘The Brief and Tragic Life of Évariste Galois’
Next Tuesday, the 30th of August, is the 200th anniversary of the birth of George Gabriel Stokes. This extended blog post is to mark that occasion. See also an article in The Irish Times.
The impact of computing on society is ever-increasing. Web-based commerce continues to grow and artificial intelligence now pervades our lives. To make wise choices, we need to understand how computers operate and how we can deploy them most constructively. Listen to any computer scientist and soon you will hear the word “algorithm” [TM168 or search for “thatsmaths” at irishtimes.com].
In (mathematical) billiards, the ball travels in a straight line between impacts with the boundary, when it changes suddenly and discontinuously We can approximate the hard-edged, flat-bedded billiard by a smooth sloping surface, that we call a “ballyard”. Then the continuous dynamics of the ballyard approach the motions on a billiard.
Elliptical tray in the form of a Ballyard.
