Kurt Hensel, born in Königsberg, studied mathematics in Berlin and Bonn, under Kronecker and Weierstrass; Leopold Kronecker was his doctoral supervisor. In 1901, Hensel was appointed to a full professorship at the University of Marburg. He spent the rest of his career there, retiring in 1930. Hensel is best known for his introduction of the … Continue reading The p-Adic Numbers (Part 2)
Month: October 2020
The p-Adic Numbers (Part I)
The motto of the Pythagoreans was ``All is Number''. They saw numbers as the essence and foundation of the physical universe. For them, numbers meant the positive whole numbers, or natural numbers $latex {\mathbb{N}}&fg=000000$, and ratios of these, the positive rational numbers $latex {\mathbb{Q}^{+}}&fg=000000$. It came as a great shock that the diagonal of a … Continue reading The p-Adic Numbers (Part I)
Terence Tao to deliver the Hamilton Lecture
Pick a number; if it is even, divide it by 2; if odd, triple it and add 1. Now repeat the process, each time halving or else tripling and adding 1. Here is a surprise: no matter what number you pick, you will eventually arrive at 1. Let's try 6: it is even, so we … Continue reading Terence Tao to deliver the Hamilton Lecture
From Impossible Shapes to the Nobel Prize
Roger Penrose, British mathematical physicist, mathematician and philosopher of science has just been named as one of the winners of the 2020 Nobel Prize in Physics. Penrose has made major contributions to general relativity and cosmology. Penrose has also come up with some ingenious mathematical inventions. He discovered a way of defining a pseudo-inverse for … Continue reading From Impossible Shapes to the Nobel Prize
Mathematics and the Nature of Physical Reality
Applied mathematics is the use of maths to address questions and solve problems outside maths itself. Counting money, designing rockets and vaccines, analysing internet traffic and predicting the weather all involve maths. But why does this work? Why is maths so successful in describing physical reality? How is it that the world can be understood … Continue reading Mathematics and the Nature of Physical Reality
ThatsMaths 