Once again the record for the largest prime number has been shattered. As with all recent records, the new number is a Mersenne prime, a number of the form Mp = 2p – 1 where p itself is a prime. Participants in a distributed computing project called GIMPS (Great Internet Mersenne Prime Search) continue without … Continue reading Prime Number Record Smashed Again
Month: January 2016
Entropy Piano Tuning
An ingenious method of tuning pianos, based on the concept of entropy, has recently been devised by Haye Hinrichsen of Würzburg University. Entropy, which first appeared in the mid-nineteenth century in thermodynamics and later in statistical mechanics, is a measure of disorder. Around 1948 Claude Shannon developed a mathematical theory of communications and used entropy … Continue reading Entropy Piano Tuning
Twin Peaks Entropy
Next week there will be a post on tuning pianos using a method based on entropy. In preparation for that, we consider here how the entropy of a probability distribution function with twin peaks changes with the separation between the peaks. Classical Entropy Entropy was introduced in classical thermodynamics about 150 years ago and, somewhat … Continue reading Twin Peaks Entropy
Richardson’s Fantastic Forecast Factory
Modern weather forecasts are made by calculating solutions of the mathematical equations that express the fundamental physical principles governing the atmosphere [TM083, or search for “thatsmaths” at irishtimes.com] The solutions are generated by complex simulation models with millions of lines of code, implemented on powerful computer equipment. The meteorologist uses the computer predictions to produce … Continue reading Richardson’s Fantastic Forecast Factory
ThatsMaths 