Imagine a room – the Oval Office for example – that has three electrical appliances: • An air-conditioner ( a ) with an American plug socket ( A ), • A boiler ( b ) with a British plug socket ( B ), • A coffee-maker ( c ) with a Continental plug socket ( … Continue reading Topology in the Oval Office
Month: February 2017
The Spire of Light
Towering over O'Connell Street in Dublin, the Spire of Light, at 120 metres, is about three times the height of its predecessor [TM109 or search for “thatsmaths” at irishtimes.com]. The Spire was erected in 2003, filling the void left by the destruction in 1966 of Nelson's Pillar. The needle-like structure is a slender cone of stainless … Continue reading The Spire of Light
Metallic Means
Everyone knows about the golden mean. It must be one of the most written-about numbers, certainly in recreational mathematics. It is usually denoted by $latex {\phi}&fg=000000$ and is the positive root of the quadratic equation $latex \displaystyle x^2 - x - 1 = 0 \ \ \ \ \ (1)&fg=000000$ with the value $latex {\phi … Continue reading Metallic Means
Voronoi Diagrams: Simple but Powerful
We frequently need to find the nearest hospital, surgery or supermarket. A map divided into cells, each cell covering the region closest to a particular centre, can assist us in our quest. Such a map is called a Voronoi diagram, named for Georgy Voronoi, a mathematician born in Ukraine in 1868. He is remembered today … Continue reading Voronoi Diagrams: Simple but Powerful
ThatsMaths 