The Indian mathematician D. R. Kaprekar spent many happy hours during his youth solving mathematical puzzles. He graduated from Fergusson College in Pune in 1929 and became a mathematical teacher at a school in Devlali, north-east of Mumbai. Kaprekar is remembered today for a range of curious mathematical patterns that he discovered. The best known … Continue reading Kaprekar’s Number 6174
Month: January 2018
The Heart of Mathematics
At five litres per minute the average human heart pumps nearly 200 megalitres of blood through the body in a lifetime. Heart disease causes 40 percent of deaths in the EU and costs hundreds of billions of Euros every year. Mathematics can help to improve our knowledge of heart disease and our understanding of cardiac … Continue reading The Heart of Mathematics
Moebiquity: Ubiquity and Versitility of the Möbius Band
The Möbius strip or Möbius band, with one side and one edge, has been a source of fascination since its discovery in 1858, independently by August Möbius and Johann Listing. It is easily formed from a strip of paper by giving it a half-twist before joining the ends. The Möbius band may be characterised in … Continue reading Moebiquity: Ubiquity and Versitility of the Möbius Band
Energy Cascades in Van Gogh’s Starry Night
"Big whirls have little whirls that feed on their velocity, And little whirls have lesser whirls, and so on to viscosity." We are all familiar with the measurement of speed, the distance travelled in a given time. Allowing for the direction as well as the magnitude of movement, we get velocity, a vector quantity. In … Continue reading Energy Cascades in Van Gogh’s Starry Night
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