Mathematics
Will the toughest problem in maths ever be solved?
For many, not just mathematicians, the Riemann hypothesis is the very definition of a supremely difficult problem that might be…
Those magnificent men and their stargazing machines
Violet Moller focuses on three 16th-century‘heroes of science’, John Dee, Nicolaus Copernicus and Tycho Brahe, and their great libraries and observatories
Bayes’s Theorem: the mathematical formula that ‘explains the world’
An obscure 18th-century Presbyterian minister’s insights into statistics are still valued today in making strategic economic decisions and forecasts
We should all embrace the power of games
Board games especially – dating back to at least 3000 BC – have never been idle entertainment but help boost the memory and teach valuable strategic skills
Why is Durham trying to ‘decolonise’ maths?
Is maths racist? That’s the question apparently troubling the department of mathematical sciences at Durham University at the moment. As…
Waiting for Gödel is over: the reclusive genius emerges from the shadows
The 20th-century Austrian mathematician Kurt Gödel did his level best to live in the world as his philosophical hero Gottfried…
The insidious attacks on scientific truth
What is truth? You can speak of moral truths and aesthetic truths but I’m not concerned with those here, important…
How time vanishes: the more we study it, the more protean it seems
Some books elucidate their subject, mapping and sharpening its boundaries. The Clock Mirage, by the mathematician Joseph Mazur, is not…
Sadness and scandal: Hinton, by Mark Blacklock, reviewed
In 1886 the British mathematician and schoolmaster Charles Howard Hinton presented himself to the police at Bow Street, London to…
Coronavirus has made amateur mathematicians of us all
‘What is the point of learning maths? When do you ever actually need it? How does it ever affect your…
The young Descartes: I fought, therefore I thought
Descartes is most generally known these days for being the guy who was sure he existed because he was thinking.…
There are things we don’t mind paying for – and things we do
Here’s a challenge for film buffs: can anyone remember, from the entire canon of cinema and television, a single scene…
Physicists have stranger ideas than the most preposterous Old Testament preacher
The beliefs of physicists are infinitely kookier than anything in the Bible, says Alexander Masters
Charles Moore’s Notes: I’ve rarely written a word in favour of Edward Heath, but I don’t believe these accusations
As someone who has rarely written a sentence in praise of the late Sir Edward Heath, I hope I can…
Is truth really beauty after all?
Mediterranean crockery has a lot to answer for. It famously spoke thus to John Keats: ‘Beauty is truth, truth beauty,…
Charles Moore’s Notes: Why the Greek No is a great moment for socialism
Even if everything goes wronger still, the Greek No vote is a great victory for the left. Until now, the…
Making physics history
The European philosophical tradition, Alfred North Whitehead claimed, consists of a series of footnotes to Plato. If you really want…
The mathematical revolution behind ‘the greatest picture in the world’
The Indian inspiration with which Piero della Francesca created ‘the greatest picture in the world’
What the O.J. Simpson jury didn’t know (and schools should teach)
During the O.J. Simpson trial, the prosecution made much of the fact that Simpson had a record of violence towards…
