Category Archives: mathematics

m4th3m4t1c5 R k3wL

Netflix (or should I say N3tfl1×) got the first season of Numb3rs this week, and I watched the first four episodes with mixed reactions. On one hand, any popular presentation of mathematics in the real world is a treat. But … Continue reading

Posted in cinema, mathematics | 2 Comments

the axes of confusion

When economists draw supply-demand charts, they put the independent variable (price) on the vertical axis and the dependent variable (quantity) on the horizontal, contrary to the usual practice in physics and pure mathematics. It’s surprisingly hard for me to adjust … Continue reading

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things that go round

weird orbits (cited by John Baez) rotating infrared Titan

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when grown-ups play with blocks

I’ve redone the Wikipedia page on convex uniform tilings of Euclidean 3-space. It occurs to me that one could enumerate the convex uniform tilings of flat, spherical and hyperbolic 3-spaces by an approach similar to what I’ve used to find … Continue reading

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how’s your German?

I’d love to have an English translation of the German comments in fullgen.c, a program that counts the polyhedra that can be made of pentagons and hexagons (i.e. fullerenes), so that I can modify it. (None of the output modes … Continue reading

Posted in language, mathematics, neep-neep | 3 Comments

did you bring enough to share?

In the old Bill Cosby Show, Chet Kincaid was a PE teacher who, in one memorable episode, substituted for an algebra teacher. (Come to think of it, that episode was probably my first exposure to algebra!) Does anyone remember the … Continue reading

Posted in cinema, mathematics | 1 Comment

the urge to meddle

I recently began contributing to Wikipedia; my biggest contribution so far is these tables of convex uniform polychora (the data are borrowed, the arrangement mine). After a few days of this, wherever I see a webpage with awkward language I … Continue reading

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