Can an Equation be a Poem?
April is Mathematics Awareness Month. April is alsoNational Poetry Month. Coincidence? Yep, almost definitely. But it’s also an opportunity: I’d like…
Writings
Supersized Viruses
On February 22, festival-goers at Melbourne’s dusk-to-dawn White Night celebration lined up in droves outside the State Library of Victoria…
Saving endangered ‘tongues’
Ong uyan madongo? You probably don’t know how to answer that question — unless you happen to be one…
Archimedes in the Fence
According to ancient historians, Archimedes spent the last moments of his life drawing figures in the dirt, so deeply entranced…
Mathematics in Metal
A mathematical surface known as the Klein bottle is like a mischievous, mathematical cousin of the Moebius…
Burning to learn
In central California’s Yosemite National Park, it doesn’t take much to set the forest on fire. A discarded cigarette.…
Paging Dr. Data
For doctors who treat trauma patients, prediction is key: Will a patient die in the next 30 minutes? Why or…
Numbers and verse
The universe is a grand book, Galileo noted in 1623, written in the language of mathematics. Those poor souls…
Two Guys Dancing about Math
A typical performance by dancers Karl Schaffer and Erik Stern begins with a handshake. However, it’s not simple: the…
Northern Hibernaculum
For years, biologist Susi von Oettingen at the US Fish and Wildlife Service tracked the devastation in New England…