Mathematical Programming

Next math carnival will be here on squareCircleZ

Updated: 2011-11-08 09:24:29

The next Mathematics and Multimedia blog carnival will be here next week.

That Turkey Time of Year

Updated: 2011-11-06 21:10:25

Each year for the past few years I've been cooking a Turkey for the American holiday of Thanksgiving, and I've been measuring the temperature through time. My goal is to build up a dataset which eventually I can use in an educational setting to give students an idea of the range of mathematical and statistical [...]

Another clever exploration by James Tanton

Updated: 2011-11-02 13:24:28

I really enjoy James Tanton's Math explorations because they tend to be easy to describe and rich in exploration value. Here's such an exploration: The problem statement is very simple. Is there a way in which we can say that there are more triangular numbers than square numbers? If so, how do we compare the [...]

A month of Math Software – October 2011

Updated: 2011-10-30 10:50:07

#leftcontainerBox { float:left; position: fixed; top: 60%; left: 70px; } #leftcontainerBox .buttons { float:left; clear:both; margin:4px 4px 4px 4px; padding-bottom:2px; } #bottomcontainerBox { height: 30px; width:50%; padding-top:1px; } #bottomcontainerBox .buttons { float:left; height: 30px; margin:4px 4px 4px 4px; } Welcome to this month’s ‘A month of Math software.’ If you missed the September edition then why not take a look at http://www.walkingrandomly.com/?p=3534. All previous editions can be found at the Month of Math Software Archives. If you have some mathematical software news for the November 2011 edition then feel free to contact me. General Mathematics [...]

Small exercice about finite groups

Updated: 2011-10-29 23:01:23

The theory of finite groups is full of little, weird exercises. Here is one of them. It seems quite simple... Try it out! Is it true that every automorphism of a finite group, which sends at least half of the elements of the group to their inverses, is an involution?...

Breaking news: Maple on iPad!

Updated: 2011-10-26 16:33:28

#leftcontainerBox { float:left; position: fixed; top: 60%; left: 70px; } #leftcontainerBox .buttons { float:left; clear:both; margin:4px 4px 4px 4px; padding-bottom:2px; } #bottomcontainerBox { height: 30px; width:50%; padding-top:1px; } #bottomcontainerBox .buttons { float:left; height: 30px; margin:4px 4px 4px 4px; } Typical…I leave my iPad at home and this happens I can’t WAIT to try this out. Blog post from Maplesoft about it at http://www.mapleprimes.com/maplesoftblog/127071-Maple-And-The-IPad?sp=127071 May I be the first to ask “When is an Android version coming out?”

Addi – A MATLAB clone for Android phones and tablets

Updated: 2011-10-25 21:52:25

#leftcontainerBox { float:left; position: fixed; top: 60%; left: 70px; } #leftcontainerBox .buttons { float:left; clear:both; margin:4px 4px 4px 4px; padding-bottom:2px; } #bottomcontainerBox { height: 30px; width:50%; padding-top:1px; } #bottomcontainerBox .buttons { float:left; height: 30px; margin:4px 4px 4px 4px; } Back in May 2010, The Mathworks released MATLAB Mobile which allows you to connect to a remote MATLAB session via an iPhone. I took a quick look and was less than impressed since what I REALLY wanted was the ability to run MATLAB code natively on my phone. Many other people, however, liked what The [...]

MATLAB mex functions using the NAG C Library in Windows

Updated: 2011-10-24 16:58:55

#leftcontainerBox { float:left; position: fixed; top: 60%; left: 70px; } #leftcontainerBox .buttons { float:left; clear:both; margin:4px 4px 4px 4px; padding-bottom:2px; } #bottomcontainerBox { height: 30px; width:50%; padding-top:1px; } #bottomcontainerBox .buttons { float:left; height: 30px; margin:4px 4px 4px 4px; } The NAG C Library is one of the largest commercial collections of numerical software currently available and I often find it very useful when writing MATLAB mex files. “Why is that?” I hear you ask. One of the main reasons for writing a mex file is to gain more speed over native MATLAB. However, one of [...]

A great triangle exploration

Updated: 2011-10-22 14:47:32

Mr. Honner has a great exploration at his blog. It starts with a simple question, that has subtlety and depth to it: How do you determine the "equilateralness" of a triangle? Can you compare two triangles and determine which is more equilateral than the other? The post introducing the investigation is here. I encourage you [...]

Seeking interesting math factoids about the number 11

Updated: 2011-10-19 23:58:45

I'll be doing a brief talk at a conference next month, on 11/11/11 at 11:11AM, about the number 11. If you know interesting factoids about 11 (or about 1111...) that I could include in the talk I'd greatly appreciate it. One factoid is that 1/(1+(1/(1+1/(1+... converges to the golden ratio. Another is that if a [...]

Check out “A Cultural Paradox: Fun in Mathematics”

Updated: 2011-10-16 18:12:47

A while back I received this email from Jeff Zilahy. Dear Mr. Lederman, I came across your blog, Wild about Math, and I too share your enthusiasm for the world of mathematics. In fact, I wrote a popular math book last year that I wanted to bring to your attention. It is called "A Cultural [...]

Bad pun

Updated: 2011-10-16 14:43:35

From the great Math humor blog, Patrick at Math Joke 4 Mathy Folks, writes: Feeling a little hungry, f(x) = x^2 + 3 walks into a restaurant. “Got any sandwiches?” he asks. “Sorry,” says the waiter, “we don’t do catering for functions.”