Monthly archives for June, 2019
A Feat of Mathematical Eponymy
This post first appeared at scientificamerican.com.
Last month, I wrote about the Euclid–Mullin sequence, a sequence of prime numbers generated when you apply the algorithm from Euclid’s proof that there are infinitely many primes. The sequence is named for Alexandrian mathematician Euclid, about whom we know almost nothing but who lived arou [...]
Happy Numbers Have No Density
This post first appeared at scientificamerican.com.
If you’re feeling a little down today, maybe a happy number will cheer you up. To see if an integer is happy, start by squaring its digits (in base ten, though happiness is defined analogously in other bases as well) and adding them together. So the number 23 would become 13 because 22+32=4+ [...]
The Funniest Math Joke
No disrespect to “why was six afraid of seven,” but “base 10″ is the funniest math joke.
I have made the mistake of unironically writing the phrase “base 10″ before, and I recently cringed and also laughed at an old post of mine that used the phrase “base 60” over and over again. I almost caught myself writ [...]
Inka History in Knots (Book Review)
This post originally appeared at scientificamerican.com.
Imagine that in a few hundred years, archaeologists stumble on some of your old files. Maybe they find spreadsheets of tax information, medical bills, or bank statements, or maybe text files with old emails or drafts of your novel. These archaeologists cannot read Latin script, and no o [...]
Recent Comments