Author Archives: admin

A Regular Heptadecagon is Constructible

Moti Ben-Ari For centuries people learned mathematics by studying Euclid’s Elements. A focus of the Elements is on the construction of geometric figures using a straightedge (a ruler with no markings) and a compass. The Elements gives constructions of regular … Continue reading

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Art and Mathematics: Knots and Links

CHRISTIAN MERCAT ET MICHÈLE ARTIGUE Friezes and tilings frequently accompany the teaching of isometries. The objects that we will consider in this vignette, like the one in Figure 1, are not far from them. However, their understanding involves other mathematics: … Continue reading

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Book of the month: Felix Klein – Visions for mathematics, applications and teaching

Renate Tobies is a renowned historian of mathematics and natural sciences. As a profound researcher, she has been studying Felix Klein and his works for decades. As a quintessence of these studies, she has now presented a book on Felix … Continue reading

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Book of the month: Étienne Ghys, La petite histoire des flocons de neige.

Seen up close, a snowflake reveals all sorts of splendors: a marvel of geometry and symmetry. In 1610, the great astronomer Johannes Kepler was astonished and wanted to explain why snowflakes have six branches. Etienne Ghys has in turn become … Continue reading

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Klein Concert

Maria Mannone from the University of Palermo is a theoretical physicist and a musician (composer and conductor). Her field of interest is mathematical music theory. She and her students have created music based on the Klein bottle. In May 2019 … Continue reading

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Site of the Month: 3Blue1Brown

3Blue1Brown presents animated videos about mathematics. It was created by Grant Sanderson, a graduate student from Stanford University who worked for Khan Academy. He created a YouTube-channel with videos on calculus, linear algebra, geometry, topology,  and many special topics such as … Continue reading

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Developing Research in Mathematics Education

August’s book of the month is Developing Research in Mathematics Education: Twenty Years of Communication, Cooperation and Collaboration in Europe, edited by Tommy Dreyfus, Michèle Artigue, Despina Potari, Susanne Prediger, and Kenneth Ruthven. It is the first book in the … Continue reading

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How Google works: Markov chains and eigenvalues

Originating author is Christiane Rousseau. From its very beginning, Google became “the” search engine. This comes from the supremacy of its ranking algorithm: the PageRank algorithm. Indeed, with the enormous quantity of pages on the World-Wide-Web, many searches end up … Continue reading

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Dimension

Originating author is Christiane Rousseau. How do we measure the size of a geometric object? For subsets of the plane we often use perimeter, length, area, diameter, etc. These are not sufficient to describe fractals. The fractal objects are very … Continue reading

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Fair voting: the quest for gold

Originating authors are Gabriel Rosenberg and Mark Iwen. It is a little known fact that two gold medals were awarded for the same pairs figure skating competition in the 2002 Winter Olympics. These two medals were ultimately a result of … Continue reading

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