mathematicians

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Monkeys Will Never Randomly Type Shakespeare
Monkeys Will Never
Randomly Type Shakespeare
NEW STUDY
Nov 1, 2024 10:54 AM CDT

Monkeys Will Never Randomly Type Shakespeare

It would take 7 universe lifetimes to complete the Bard's works, mathematicians say

(Newser) - The old adage goes that if you give an army of chimpanzees typewriters, one will eventually write the complete works of William Shakespeare by chance. The so-called infinite monkey theorem is a thought experiment meant to demonstrate that events with a non-zero probability will occur over infinite time. In other...

Math Problem Cracked After 90 Years

Mathematicians solved a 'Ramsey' graph problem that's baffled many for decades

(Newser) - Unless you dabble in advanced math, r(4,t) probably doesn't mean much to you. But to the delight of mathematicians across the globe, researchers cracked this "Ramsey problem," which has baffled great minds for decades. Phys.org reports that the findings of University of California San Diego...

He Plunged From Cliff in 1988. 34 Years Later, an Admission

Australia's Scott White confesses in court to killing American Scott Johnson

(Newser) - Update: An Australian man has admitted to murdering an American mathematician who fell to his death from a cliff in Sydney in 1988, reports the AP . Scott White admitted in court that he killed Scott Johnson, whose death was initially ruled a suicide. The 27-year-old Johnson was gay, and prosecutors...

One of the 'Hidden Figures' Has Died at Age 101

Katherine Johnson worked for NASA 33 years

(Newser) - Katherine Johnson, the mathematician hired by NASA at its Langley Research Center in 1953 even as racially segregating Jim Crow laws were still widely used in Virginia, died Monday at age 101. The pioneering "human computer," who worked during the space race years to help Alan Shepard become...

He May Have Solved a $1M Math Problem
His $1M Math Solution
Isn't Going Over Well
in case you missed it
Sep 29, 2018 1:00 PM CDT

His $1M Math Solution Isn't Going Over Well

Michael Atiyah must convince colleagues that he cracked a 159-year-old problem

(Newser) - Michael Atiyah is an acclaimed mathematician who has won some of the top prizes in his field, and he now claims to have cracked a 159-year-old problem called the Riemann hypothesis. If he's right, Atiyah wins even more acclaim—plus a $1 million prize. But before the bubbly is...

He Won Math's Most Coveted Prize. 30 Minutes Later, It Was Gone

Rio thief made off with professor's Fields medal

(Newser) - Algebraic geometry, particularly problems involving singularities and linear systems, is Caucher Birkar's specialty. Hanging on to medals apparently isn't. The renowned Cambridge professor had his Fields medal—known as the Nobel Prize of mathematics—stolen within 30 minutes of receiving it at the International Congress of Mathematics in...

4 Years Later, Math Pros Begin to Grasp Guy's Theory

But it could be years before ABC conjecture is officially solved

(Newser) - Four years after a Japanese mathematician announced he'd cracked an epic math problem , his fellow number crunchers are a step closer to deciding whether he got it right. Yes, his work is that complicated. In 2012, Shinichi Mochizuki of Kyoto University, who's known to work in isolation, published...

Crowdsourcing Helps Prof Solve Old Math Problem

Terence Tao publishes a proof of the 83-year-old Erdos discrepancy problem

(Newser) - UCLA professor Terence Tao , one of the world's top mathematicians, has just solved a famous problem dating back to the 1930s—and he says it was a comment on his blog earlier this year that sent him in the right direction. He also built off earlier crowdsourced work to...

What's So Special About This Japanese Chalk?

The company has folded, but the chalk is still available online

(Newser) - When the 80-year-old Japanese company that produces Hagoromo Fulltouch chalk went out of business this past spring , mathematicians took to social media to pay their respects and their wallets to buy as much of the chalk as they could—15 years' worth in the case of one professor. Sarah Zhang...

3-Sentence Letter of Reference Goes Viral

A mathematician wrote it for 'genius' John Forbes Nash

(Newser) - Like a strong, simple letter of recommendation? Well it helps if the subject is a genius. Mathematician Richard Duffin wrote a letter to Princeton University for John Forbes Nash, Jr., who became an esteemed mathematician and the subject of the film A Beautiful Mind, Mashable reports. Dated Feb. 11, 1948,...

A Beautiful Mind Mathematician, Wife Die in Crash

John Forbes Nash, Alicia Nash killed in taxi on New Jersey Turnpike

(Newser) - John Forbes Nash, the Nobel-winning Princeton mathematician known for his work in game theory and as the inspiration behind A Beautiful Mind, died yesterday in a crash in New Jersey. Also killed was his wife and partner of nearly six decades, Alicia Nash. The Nashes were riding in a taxi...

A Lot of Mathematicians Have Met Awful Fates

And one of them has decided to keep track

(Newser) - Those who visit the homepage of a Rutgers mathematician could be checking his office hours or what papers he's written. But it's far more likely that they're there to access a link that appears, without fanfare, on a page mathematics PhD student Kellen Myers has simply titled...

Descartes' Skull Reveals Secret About His Life

17th-century French mathematician famously said, 'I think, therefore I am'

(Newser) - French mathematician and father of modern philosophy Rene Descartes is perhaps most famous for his phrase, "I think, therefore I am." But now French medical anthropologist and forensic expert Philippe Charlier is adding a layer of intrigue to the thinker's history. Descartes died in Stockholm in 1650...

First Woman Wins 'Math's Nobel Prize'

Stanford's Maryam Mirzakhani awarded Fields Medal

(Newser) - An Iranian-born Stanford University professor has become the first woman to win the Fields Medal—the most prestigious prize in mathematics, and one that the San Jose Mercury News describes as "math's Nobel Prize." Maryam Mirzakhani, 37, is one of four mathematicians under 40 being awarded the...

Mathematician Cracks OkCupid, Finds Wife

Though it still took 88 actual first dates

(Newser) - First, there was boy meets girl. Then, boy meets girl online. And now, boy meets girl online after manipulating the algorithms of his Internet dating site. As Wired explains, it helps to be a mathematician. Christopher McKinlay was a 30-something looking for love on OkCupid and not having much luck....

Big Discovery: Largest Prime Number

Newest Mersenne 'like finding a diamond'

(Newser) - The Great Internet Mersenne Prime Search just paid dividends in the hunt for ever-bigger prime numbers, the New Scientist reports. University of Central Missouri mathematician Curtis Cooper has discovered the biggest prime number yet, a 17 million-digit behemoth, as part of GIMPS. The project uses a huge network of volunteer...

Google Doodle Offers Brain-Teaser Tribute

It honors mathematician Alan Turing

(Newser) - Google today honors pioneering mathematician Alan Turing with one of its more ambitious Google Doodles. As USA Today explains, it simulates one of his theoretical concepts, a Turing Machine. "There are six puzzles to solve, one for each letter in the Google logo," writes Nancy Blair. "After...

How This Woman Changed Physics

Emmy Noether may be obscure, but her work was revolutionary

(Newser) - Her work may be the "backbone" of all modern physics; her key theorem could be as important as the theory of relativity; yet hardly anyone knows who Emmy Noether is. Celebrating her 130th birthday this month, Noether has suffered what the New York Times calls "chronic neglect"—...

Mathematician Calculates Pi to 10T Digits

Breaks own previous record of 5T digits

(Newser) - A Japanese man used his homemade computer to calculate the value of pi to 10 trillion digits, breaking the 5-trillion-digit record he himself set last August . Systems engineer Shigeru Kondo, 56, started crunching the numbers on a computer using a 48-terabyte hard drive in October and finished Sunday, the Telegraph...

Forget Pi, Here Comes Tau
 Forget Pi, 
 Here Comes Tau 
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT
Jul 2, 2011 1:30 PM CDT

Forget Pi, Here Comes Tau

Using a new constant would simplify things, say experts

(Newser) - You don't need to be a mathematician to appreciate pi: Children everywhere can tell you it's 3.14, and it's even celebrated on 3-14. But now experts are arguing that pi, which references the ratio of a circle's circumference to its diameter, be replaced with a...

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