“I wonder if I shall fall right through the earth”, thought Alice as she fell down the rabbit hole, “and come out in the antipathies”. In addition to the author of the “Alice” books, Lewis Carroll – in real life the mathematician Charles L. Dodgson – many famous thinkers have asked what would happen if … Continue reading A Hole through the Earth
Month: August 2013
Ternary Variations
Georg Cantor (1845-1918) was led, through his study of trigonometric series, to distinguish between denumerably infinite sets like the rationals and uncountable sets like the reals. He introduced a set that is an abstract form of what we now call Cantor's Ternary Set. In fact, the ternary set had been studied some ten years earlier … Continue reading Ternary Variations
The Atmospheric Railway
Atmospheric pressure acting on a surface the size of a large dinner-plate exerts a force sufficient to propel a ten ton train! The That’s Maths column ( TM027 ) in the Irish Times this week is about the atmospheric railway. For more than ten years from 1843 a train without a locomotive plied the 2.8 km … Continue reading The Atmospheric Railway
The remarkable BBP Formula
Information that is declared to be forever inaccessible is sometimes revealed within a short period. Until recently, it seemed impossible that we would ever know the value of the quintillionth decimal digit of pi. But a remarkable formula has been found that allows the computation of binary digits starting from an arbitrary position without the … Continue reading The remarkable BBP Formula
Admirably Appropriate
The topic of the That’s Maths column ( TM026 ) in the Irish Times this week is the surprising and delightful way in which mathematics developed for its own sake turns out to be eminently suited for solving practical problems. Symbiosis between pure and applied mathematics The power of mathematics is astonishing. Time and again, … Continue reading Admirably Appropriate
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