In 1903 Frank Nelson Cole delivered an extraordinary lecture to the American Mathematical Society. For almost an hour he performed a calculation on the chalkboard without uttering a single word. When he finished, the audience broke into enthusiastic applause. Cole, an American mathematician born in 1861, was educated at Harvard. He lectured there and later … Continue reading Lecture sans paroles: the factors of M67
Month: June 2016
Bending the Rules to Square the Circle
Squaring the circle was one of the famous Ancient Greek mathematical problems. Although studied intensively for millennia by many brilliant scholars, no solution was ever found. The problem requires the construction of a square having area equal to that of a given circle. This must be done in a finite number of steps, using only … Continue reading Bending the Rules to Square the Circle
Bloom’s attempt to Square the Circle
The quadrature of the circle is one of the great problems posed by the ancient Greeks. This “squaring of the circle” was also an issue of particular interest to Leopold Bloom, the central character in James Joyce’s novel Ulysses, whom we celebrate today, Bloomsday, 16 June 2016 [see TM093, or search for “thatsmaths” at irishtimes.com]. The challenge … Continue reading Bloom’s attempt to Square the Circle
Prime Generating Formulae
The prime numbers have challenged and perplexed the greatest mathematicians for millennia. Shortly before he died, the brilliant Hungarian number theorist Paul Erdös said "it will be another million years, at least, before we understand the primes". The primes are scattered through the natural numbers in a manner that exhibits both order and chaos. For … Continue reading Prime Generating Formulae
Big Data: the Information Explosion
The world is awash with data. Large data sets have been available for many decades but in recent years their volumes have grown explosively. With mobile devices and internet connections data capture is simple and with powerful computers the analysis of “big data” is feasible [see TM092, or search for “thatsmaths” at irishtimes.com]. But there are … Continue reading Big Data: the Information Explosion
ThatsMaths 