Like the ancient Pythagoreans, astronomer Johannes Kepler (1571–1630) found numbers fascinating. Imbued with the same conviction of a natural order that drove Pythagoras (c. 580–500 B.C.) and his followers to search for an underlying numerical harmony, Kepler maintained that the physical universe was laid out according to a mathematical design that was simple and accessible to human intelligence.The motions of the planets appeared discordant, Kepler argued, because no one had yet learned to hear their songs. The natural philosopher's task was to identify the prime cause from which all else log...

Like the ancient Pythagoreans, astronomer Johannes Kepler (1571–1630) found numbers fascinating. Imbued with the same conviction of a natural order that drove Pythagoras (c. 580–500 B.C.) and his followers to search for an underlying numerical harmony, Kepler maintained that the physical universe was laid out according to a mathematical design that was simple and accessible to human intelligence.The motions of the planets appeared discordant, Kepler argued, because no one had yet learned to hear their songs. The natural philosopher's task was to identify the prime cause from which all else log...

Sealed within a transparent, tapered, liquid-filled cylinder, illuminated colored globs slowly rise and fall. Meandering and deforming, their shapes and paths change unpredictably. Invented in 1963, a decorative fixture in many homes during the 1970s, and still in production, Lava Lite lamps are now the object of renewed curiosity.Indeed, researchers have come up with a novel application of the mesmerizing movements of the lamp’s globules. They use them as the starting point for generating a sequence of random numbers. Called lavarand, the random-number generator is the tongue-in-cheek work of...

Sealed within a transparent, tapered, liquid-filled cylinder, illuminated colored globs slowly rise and fall. Meandering and deforming, their shapes and paths change unpredictably. Invented in 1963, a decorative fixture in many homes during the 1970s, and still in production, Lava Lite lamps are now the object of renewed curiosity.Indeed, researchers have come up with a novel application of the mesmerizing movements of the lamp’s globules. They use them as the starting point for generating a sequence of random numbers. Called lavarand, the random-number generator is the tongue-in-cheek work of...