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<p>Professors Paul Chaikin, left, and Salvatore Torquato used M&M candies to reveal fundamental principles governing the random packing of particles.</p> <p>WASHINGTON (Reuters) -- Princeton physicist Paul Chaikin's passion for M&M's candies was so well known that his students played a sweet practical joke on him by leaving a 55-gallon drum of the candies in his office.</p>

The message at a technical symposium Thursday afternoon at Livingstone College was that this country needs to work harder to get children excited about math and science. Participants discussed strategies to get this generation of young people into the math and science educational pipeline as early as possible so they'll be prepared to meet the nation's increasing need for math and science graduates. Dr. Bernard Harris, a retired astronaut who was the first African-American to walk in space, participated in the panel discussion, which was moderated by John Hairston of NASA's Glenn Research Center in Cleveland, Ohio. Harris told his...

When only 25 when Gaston Julia published his 199 page masterpiece Mémoire sur l'iteration des fonctions rationelles which made him famous in the mathematics centres of his days. As a soldier in the First World War, Julia had been severely wounded in an attack on the French front designed to celebrate the Kaiser's birthday. Many on both sides were wounded including Julia who lost his nose and had to wear a leather strap across his face for the rest of his life. Between several painful operations he carried on his mathematical researches in hospital. Later he became a distinguished...

Incan Counting System Decoded? By Rossella Lorenzi, Discovery News Learn how to add 9+7 on the yupana abacus. Jan. 29, 2004 ? The Inca invented a powerful counting system that could be used to make complex calculations without the tiniest mistake, according to an Italian engineer who claims to have cracked the mathematics of this still mysterious ancient population. Begun in the Andean highlands in about 1200, the Inca ruled the largest empire on Earth by the time their last emperor, Atahualpa, was garroted by Spanish conquistadors in 1533. Long been considered the only major Bronze Age civilization without a...

ST. PETERSBURG, Russia, Jan. 21 (UPI) -- Russian mathematicians have determined the legendary parting of the Red Sea that let the Jews flee Egypt was possible, the Moscow Times reported. The study, published in the Bulletin of the Russian Academy of Sciences, focused on a reef that runs from the documented spot where the Jews escaped Egypt, which in Biblical times, was much closer to the surface, according to Naum Volzinger, a senior researcher at St. Petersburg's Institute of Oceanology, and a colleague based in Hamburg, Alexei Androsov. The mathematicians calculated the "strong east wind that blew all that night"...

"Math is hard, let's go shopping!" When Mattel released a talking Barbie who offered that bit of teenage wisdom, public reaction was so furious they pulled her off the shelves. Mattel is still trying to recover from the PR disaster. I assume they fired the guy who came up with that little gem. Not that it mattered much. I have every confidence he's enjoying a new career, designing math programs for American public schools. What else can I think about programs that encourage children to "shop" for the correct way to multiply? That ask kids what "color" they think math...

<p>During Math Night at Madison Park Elementary School last year, 75 parents discovered they needed to upgrade their math knowledge if they wanted to help their children with homework. Six teachers taught parents about "Investigations at Home," a math curriculum used at the school.</p>

County students compete for spots at regional contest North Elementray fifth-grader Stephanie Hao (top) concentrates on a written math test during Elementary Math Field Day Wednesday morning in the WVU Mountainlair ballrooms. Hao placed third out of 20 fifth-graders and will compete in the regional Math Field Day competition in Bridgeport on March 6, 2004. Suncrest Middle sixth-grade teacher Sarah Corder (above, left) answers a question for Alliance Christian Schools sixth-grader Zach Evans during Elementary Math Field Day Wednesday morning. Ron Rittenhouse/The Dominion Post Photos BY JENNIFER SCOTT-HEASLIP The Dominion Post Nearly 200 students had a field day with numbers...

<p>DETROIT, Michigan (AP) -- More than 200,000 computers spent years looking for the largest known prime number. It turned up on Michigan State University graduate student Michael Shafer's off-the-shelf PC.</p> <p>"It was just a matter of time," Shafer said.</p> <p>The number is 6,320,430 digits long and would need 1,400 to 1,500 pages to write out. It is more than 2 million digits larger than the previous largest known prime number.</p>

Math & Design in the Universe - Updated

Historic maths problem 'cracked' By Dr David Whitehouse BBC News Online science editor A 22-year-old student at Stockholm University, Elin Oxenhielm, may have solved part of one of mathematics' greatest unsolved problems. Called Hilbert's problem 16, it has confounded workers for over a century. But in a few hours of inspiration she may have seen the light. Her solution is to be published in a maths journal. Her research into so-called planar polynomial vector fields may have practical applications for computer simulations in science and economics. Passion for maths "I solved it before I knew its significance," Elin Oxenhielm told...

Diophantus of Alexandria -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Born: about 200 Died: about 284 Previous (Chronologically) Next Biographies Index Previous (Alphabetically) Next Main index -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Diophantus, often known as the 'father of algebra', is best known for his Arithmetica, a work on the solution of algebraic equations and on the theory of numbers. However, essentially nothing is known of his life and there has been much debate regarding the date at which he lived. There are a few limits which can be put on the dates of Diophantus's life. On the one hand Diophantus quotes the definition of a polygonal number from the work...

This is my first vanity post, I wasn't going to post this until I realized there is a "vanity" option under topics. Anyone care to help out a freeper? I'm about to begin the three part calculus sequence followed by differential equqations and I'm starting to get nervous. I would like advice from those who are there or have been there. I am an adult student who has decided to return to school, I have re-taken trig and precalculus (both A's)as a refresher. I'm looking for any kind of advice, general or specific. What things are inportant for the study...

A school system study, released quietly in February, showed that students in a small mathematics pilot program did significantly better than their peers who were not in the program. The study examined the second year of student performance in four elementary schools that used the Singapore Math program during the 2001-2002 school year. The four elementary schools were College Gardens in Rockville, Charles Drew in Silver Spring, Highland View in Silver Spring and Woodfield in Gaithersburg. Singapore Math was developed by the government of that southeast Asian country. It became popular in the United States after students in Singapore ranked...

Request to all technical dweebs out there primarily mathematicians and number theorists about why the following is always true. Start with a 3 or 4 digit number. Scramble the same digits to create a new number. Subtract the smaller number from the larger number. Add all the digits in the answer as many times as necessary to get a single digit. Why does this always work?

I'm having a debate on another board regarding AIDS and the reasons for high infection rates. This was my post: Simple case, 2 coin tosses, heads=win: What are the odds of winning both times? Odds of winning first time is .5, odds of winning second time is .5, odds of winning both times is .5 x .5 = .5 to the 2nd power = .25, which is 25%. More complex, add 1 more coin toss for 3 total, heads=win: Odds of winning third time is still .5, odds of winning all 3 times is .25 x .5 = .5 to...

Boy Suspected of Trying to Poison Math Teacher CALIFORNIA: The student, 16, put eyedrops in his instructor's water bottle in an attempt to make her ill, authorities in Placentia say. By H.G. Reza, Times Staff Writer A Placentia student who was struggling with algebra has been arrested and charged in an attempted poisoning of his math teacher, officials said. The boy, 16, put eyedrops in his teacher's water bottle Friday at El Camino Real High School to give her what he expected would be "an explosive case of diarrhea," said Placentia police Det. Corrine Loomis. The boy was not identified...

McClintock can’t win? Do the math again! From Perspicacity & Paradigms Online (www.perspicacityonline.com) Posted Wednesday, Oct. 1, 2003 By Rand Green P&P Editor & Publisher OVERWHELMINGLY, Republicans who plan on voting for Arnold Schwarzenegger in the California gubernatorial election on October 7 justify their choice by saying that they would rather see Tom McClintock be governor but they just don’t believe Tom can win. You hear it over and over again. On talk radio. In letters to the editor. On network interviews. In emails. In conversations around the water fountain at work or on the golf course or at Chamber...

Teaching Math in 1950: A logger sells a truckload of lumber for $100. His cost of production is 4/5 of the price. What is his profit? ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Teaching Math in 1960: A logger sells a truckload of lumber for $100. His cost of production is 4/5 of the price, or $80. What is his profit? ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Teaching Math in 1970: A logger exchanges a set "L" of lumber for a set "M" of money. The cardinality of set "M" is 100. Each element is worth one dollar. Make 100 dots representing the elements of the set "M." The set "C,"...

Evolution of Math    Teaching Math in 1950: A logger sells a truckload of lumber for $100. His cost of production is 4/5 of the price. What is his profit? Teaching Math in 1960: A logger sells a truckload of lumber for $100. His cost of production is 4/5 of the price, or $80. What is his profit? Teaching Math in 1970: A logger exchanges a set "L" of lumber for a Set "M" of money. The cardinality of set "M" is 100. Each element is worth one dollar. Make 100 dots representing the elements of the set "M". The set "C", the cost of production, contains 20 fewer points than...