Mathematicians, to prove their theorems, write on blackboards, paper, and parchment; as history tells us, even sand, like Archimedes. One uses clay. Here we present the work of Robert Fathauer, a physicist/engineer/mathematician with a special skills for the arts, from clay modeling of mathematical forms to computer-coded tessellations. His recent book "Tessellations" summarizes years of science, […]
Category Theory is a branch of mathematics born during the 1950's of last century to model several branches of mathematics with the aid of points, arrows, and diagrams. Categorical thinking has proven to be useful in other disciplines as well, and thus, applied categories have been developed. We talked about this in another post. Books about category theory seem to be […]
We often hear about youth lost in the world of alcohol and drugs, but less often of young people pleasantly immersed within geometry. And because geometry is a mathematical concept, and it is possible to investigate a bottle's curvature, as well as any liquids including alcohol which may be expressed meticulously via precise laws of […]
Why do we need theoretical research in physics? What did it mean to be a young physicist in the Soviet Union? And finally, which characteristics should a good student of physics have? Dirac medalist and member of the National Academy of Sciences, Prof. Mikhail Shifman answers these questions and more for Math is in the Air. […]
John Baez is an American mathematical physicist, and a professor of mathematics at the University of California Riverside, and an activist for the environment. I have been in touch with him via email and through his online course on category theory. Recently, I had the pleasure to met him in person in London, during a […]
A mathematical language for juggling We have all seen, at least once in our life, a juggler tossing balls in the air. Why is that so impressing at our eyes? Despite having just two hands, any respectable juggler can juggle three balls at the same time. Considering for simplicity that one can handle one ball for each hand, how […]
By Maria Mannone PANGOLIN (Ground Pangolin, manis temminckii) A pangolin curled up in the defensive position: When the pangolin is frightened, it curls up, becoming a sort of armored ball that the predatory animals are not able to open, but easy to be caught by poachers. The pangolin is characterized by a strong scale […]
This post presents the interview with Mitjanit, the author of Spaghetti Coder a multimedia project started in January 2015 by creative coder Toni Mitjanit (@spaghetticoder77) in the area of Generative Art in order to explore new boundaries in audiovisual expression. It is focused on producing amazing graphics, fascinating sounds and interactive animations using creative coding. […]
The only experience that is worse than the annual condo meeting or queuing up at the post office is, probably, the parent-teacher conference. It's an ordeal for the parents, forced to wait a long time. It's cause of panic for the students, who are afraid that their parents may be mad at them. But, I […]
![Euclidean distance and others: non Euclidean geometries [Part 3]](http://www.mathisintheair.com/eng/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/minima_distanza-300x184.png)
Every day, everyone asks itself about the best way to move from a point A to a point B. Usually, if you are always late like me, you want to pick the shortest way. To define the shortest way between two points can be really easy in some cases but not in all. All distances […]
