Latest news from Plus magazine! - http://plus.maths.org
In this newsletter:
- Latest news
- Browse with Plus
- Mathematical moments
- Live maths
- The Plus new writers award
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Latest news
Searching for the soul in the machine - What kind of a society would computers
create? http://www.plus.maths.org/latestnews/may-aug06/computers/index.html
Plus... more news from the world of maths
Nano fractals
http://www.plus.maths.org/latestnews/jan-apr05/plusmore35/index.html#nano
Taking a leaf out of Nature's book
http://www.plus.maths.org/latestnews/jan-apr05/plusmore35/index.html#ants
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Browse with Plus
Mathematical Imagery
Maths and art come together on the American Mathematical Society's new webpage
"Mathematical imagery". The site includes albums of maths-inspired and
mathematically-generated works, which may be sent as e-postcards, links to
online galleries and museums and to other resources about mathematics and art.
http://www.ams.org/mathimagery.
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Mathematical moments
Eugene Charles Catalan - Born 30th of May 1814 in Bruges, Belgium
Died: 14 Feb 1894 in Liege, Belgium
1, 2, 5, 14, 42, 132, 429, 1430 ... and what next? This is what Eugene Catalan
asked himself and as a result the numbers in this infinite sequence carry his
name: they are called the "Catalan numbers". He came across the number sequence
when trying to figure out in how many ways you can dissect a regular polygon
into triangles using non-intersecting diagonals. Subsequently, the sequence has
turned up again and again, and it describes a surprising variety of processes.
The nth Catalan number tells you, for example, in how many ways you can put
brackets into a sequence of n numbers that are to be multiplied two at a time,
and how many binary trees with n+1 leaves there are.
Catalan was taught by the eminent mathematician Liouville, who helped him
obtain a lectureship in descriptive geometry at Ecole Polytechnique in 1838.
Apart from defining the Catalan numbers, he published a lot of work on number
theory, in particular on continued fractions. However, maybe unusually for a
mathematician, he engaged in fervent political activity and his strong
left-wing views significantly hampered his mathematical career.
You can find out more about Catalan numbers on
http: //mathforum.org/advanced/robertd/catalan.html and on
http: //www.geometer.org/mathcircles/catalan.pdf, and learn what a
binary tree is on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binary_tree.
The next number, by the way, is 4862.
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Live maths
Taking chances
Many people find it very difficult to understand situations that involve
uncertainty. It can be hard to ascertain which factors are important and to
reach sound conclusions. What's more, probability can be annoyingly
counter-intuitive. This lecture by Dr John Haigh, organised by the Royal
Institution in association with the Royal Statistical Society, looks at soccer
matches and medical treatments and will seek to show how a logical approach can
guide you through the probabilistic jungle.
When: Wednesday 21 June 2006, 6.30pm-8.00pm
Where: Main Lecture Theatre, Royal Statistical Society, 12 Errol Street,
London, EC1Y 8LX.
Tickets are £8 (£5 concession) and can be booked on the Royal Institution's
website http://www.rigb.org/rimain/calendar/detail.jsp?&id=276.
The London Mathematical Society Popular Lectures
John Haigh also features in this years popular lectures organised by the LMS.
His talk will again consider how logic can tame probability theory, while Emma
McCoy will look at magic squares, Latin squares and Sudoku.
When: Wednesday 12th of July at 7 pm.
Tickets are free, but you must apply for one to Lee-Anne Parker, London
Mathematical Society, De Morgan House, 57-58 Russell Square, London WC1B 4HS
(email: [log in to unmask]). More information is on http://www.lms.ac.uk/. Note
that the lectures will be repeated in Birmingham on the 27th of September.
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The Plus new writers award
The Plus new writers award has now been launched! See if you can become a Plus
author, get published in the December issue and even win an iPod, by sending us
an inspiring maths related article. For more details visit
http://plus.maths.org/competition. Please pass this information on to anyone
who may be interested. Competition closes September 30th 2006.
Happy reading from the Plus team!
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