ThatsMaths

Every day, startling new accomplishments of Artificial Intelligence (AI) are announced, new records are broken and new problems solved.

When tapped at any of the four cardinal points (North, South, East or West), a teacup with its handle towards the North emits the same ringing sound; when the tap is displaced by 45°, the note is about a semitone higher.

The Tower of Jesus Christ, part of the Basilica de la Sagrada Família, was inaugurated last week.

In blue sky research, real-world applications are not the immediate goal.

Sophie Germain, born in Paris 250 years ago this month, spent long periods at home while growing up in the politically turbulent era of the French Revolution.

The date of Easter Sunday, the great Christian festival celebrating the resurrection of Jesus, is determined by an amalgam of astronomy, mathematics and pragmatism, an algorithm that determines the date in accordance with the motions of the Sun and Moon […

Precise measurements are indispensable in science and technology.

Is the universe finite or infinite in extent?

The simple question of who invented the digital computer has many possible answers.

Directly opposite the RDS in Dublin, on the site of the former AIB headquarters, stand two impressive new office blocks separated by a plaza, Fibonacci Place.

A crucial link between mathematics and music is nicely illustrated by the Tonnetz, a geometric diagram representing the harmonic relationships between the notes of the musical scale.

With unique and outstanding achievements in mathematics and science, John von Neumann was on an intellectual level far above us; the oft-misused term genius truly applies to him.

In 1966, American mathematician Steve Smale was awarded a Fields Medal, a kind of Nobel Prize for mathematics.

In his classical textbook on mechanics, Edmund Whittaker described the three-body problem as “the most celebrated of all dynamical problems”.

Imagine the Earth were to shrink to the size of a marble.

There are five sweet spots where a spacecraft can keep pace with Earth as both orbit the Sun.

A recent entry in the visitor’s book of the James Joyce Tower & Museum in Sandycove, Dublin perplexed the Friends of Joyce’s Tower, the volunteers who run the museum.

At 9.01AM today, the Sun crosses the Earth’s equator, marking the vernal equinox, the date when the direction of sunrise is due east and sunset due west.

This is the International Year of the Quantum, celebrating quantum science and its many applications.

The German word Doktorvater for a doctoral advisor indicates the close relationship between a PhD student and his or her supervisor.

The London Eye, a vast observation wheel with a diameter of 120 metres, on the south bank of the River Thames, opened in 2000.

Carbon dioxide (CO2) is the main culprit in causing our climate to change, but it is only recently that a key property of CO2 has been elucidated.

The ongoing search for ever-larger prime numbers continues apace.

Since 1950, there has been a quiet but steady revolution in meteorology, and especially in numerical weather prediction (NWP).

While mathematics may be viewed as an abstract creation, its origins lie in the physical world.

Science advances by overturning theories, replacing them by better ones.

We have all noticed how the horn of a speeding car changes as it approaches: each wave-peak is emitted from a closer point, so the wave is “squeezed” and the pitch increases.

Gaze up at the night sky and you catch a glimpse of infinity.

This article comes from the Institut Henri-Poincaré (IHP), part of Sorbonne University, in the Latin Quarter of Paris.

Panta Rhei — everything flows — said Heraclites, describing the impermanence of the world.