Monthly Archives: August 2012

Studies have shown that bilateral symmetry in female humans is linked to attractiveness. Also connected with attractiveness is the presence of the golden ratio (the positive real root of the quadratic equation x² – x – 1 = 0, approximately 1.618034). Earlier, … Continue reading →

What’s the cheapest calculator you know of? Basic calculators are much cheaper than their scientific counterparts, and you can probably get one for £2. A slide rule is even cheaper: you could strap together two plastic rulers with logarithmic scales … Continue reading →

There is a plethora of polyhedra. One way to classify polyhedra is based on their symmetry, transitivity and other properties. An alternative, constructive approach, by John Conway, involves specifying sequences of operations to turn one polyhedron into another. Quite a … Continue reading →

I expect you’re tired of hearing about the centenary of Alan Turing’s birth. His automated machines for cracking the German Enigma and Lorenz ciphers have enjoyed quite a lot of recent press, as has his pioneering work on the theory … Continue reading →

For my first post on this blog, I’ve decided to stay away from complex projective 4-space, but instead write about something equally mathematical and just as interesting: pathological functions. The ideas may be more familiar to you in the form of fractals, although the … Continue reading →