Posts Tagged 'Applied Maths'

Euler and the Fountains of Sanssouci

Published September 7, 2017 Irish Times Leave a Comment
Tags: , ,

When Frederick the Great was crowned King of Prussia in 1740 he immediately revived the Berlin Academy of Sciences and invited scholars from throughout Europe to Berlin. The most luminous of these was Leonhard Euler, who arrived at the academy in 1741. Euler was an outstanding genius, brilliant in both mathematics and physics. Yet, a myth persists that he failed spectacularly to solve a problem posed by Frederick. Euler is reputed to have bungled his mathematical analysis. In truth, there was much bungling, but the responsibility lay elsewhere. [TM122 or search for “thatsmaths” at irishtimes.com].

Sanssouci-Fountain

Sanssouci Palace, the summer home of Frederick the Great in Potsdam.
PHOTO: https://www.flickr.com/photos/b_hurwitz/4064337397/

Continue reading ‘Euler and the Fountains of Sanssouci’

Inertial Oscillations and Phugoid Flight

Published July 13, 2017 Occasional Leave a Comment
Tags: , ,

The English aviation pioneer Frederick Lanchester (1868–1946) introduced many important contributions to aerodynamics. He analysed the motion of an aircraft under various consitions of lift and drag. He introduced the term “phugoid” to describe aircraft motion in which the aircraft alternately climbs and descends, varying about straight and level flight. This is one of the basic modes of aircraft dynamics, and is clearly illustrated by the flight of gliders.

Glider-Loop-20

Glider in phugoid loop [photograph by Dave Jones on website of Dave Harrison]. 

Continue reading ‘Inertial Oscillations and Phugoid Flight’

Wavelets: Mathematical Microscopes

Published May 25, 2017 Occasional Leave a Comment
Tags: ,

In the last post, we saw how Yves Meyer won the Abel Prize for his work with wavelets. Wavelets make it easy to analyse, compress and transmit information of all sorts, to eliminate noise and to perform numerical calculations. Let us take a look at how they came to be invented.

Wavelets-CWT-Example-BOTTOM

Continue reading ‘Wavelets: Mathematical Microscopes’

Yves Meyer wins 2017 Abel Prize

Published May 18, 2017 Irish Times Leave a Comment
Tags: ,

On 23 May King Harald V of Norway will present the Abel Prize to French mathematician Yves Meyer. Each year, the prize is awarded to a laureate for “outstanding work in the field of mathematics”. Comparable to a Nobel Prize, the award is named after the exceptional Norwegian, Niels Henrik Abel who, in a short life from 1802 to 1829, made dramatic advances in mathematics. Meyer was chosen for his development of the mathematical theory of wavelets. [See TM115 or search for “thatsmaths” at irishtimes.com].

Yves-Meyer-Wide

Continue reading ‘Yves Meyer wins 2017 Abel Prize’

The Spire of Light

Published February 16, 2017 Irish Times Leave a Comment
Tags: ,

 

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 steel, the diameter tapering from 3 metres at the base to 15 cm at its apex. The illumination from the top section shines like a beacon throughout the city.

spire-nightscape

Continue reading ‘The Spire of Light’

Marvellous Merchiston’s Logarithms

Published November 17, 2016 Irish Times Leave a Comment
Tags: , ,

Log tables, invaluable in science, industry and commerce for 350 years, have been consigned to the scrap heap. But logarithms remain at the core of science, as a wide range of physical phenomena follow logarithmic laws  [TM103 or search for “thatsmaths” at irishtimes.com].

realcalc

Android app RealCalc with natural and common log buttons indicated.

Continue reading ‘Marvellous Merchiston’s Logarithms’

Thank Heaven for Turbulence

Published October 20, 2016 Irish Times Leave a Comment
Tags: ,

The chaotic flow of water cascading down a mountainside is known as turbulence. It is complex, irregular and unpredictable, but we should count our blessings that it exists. Without turbulence, we would gasp for breath, struggling to absorb oxygen or be asphyxiated by the noxious fumes belching from motorcars, since pollutants would not be dispersed through the atmosphere [TM101, or search for “thatsmaths” at irishtimes.com].

turbulent-flow

Turbulent flow behind a cylindrical obstacle [image from “An Album of Fluid Motion”, Milton Van Dyke, 1982].

Continue reading ‘Thank Heaven for Turbulence’

Last 50 Posts

Categories