Column

  1. Math

    Climbing a Watery Slope

    A water-walking insect can propel itself up steep, slippery slopes without moving its legs.

    By Ivars Peterson
  2. Math

    Ask-a-Friend Marketplaces

    If you ask enough friends, paying for answers to questions can help you get the answers you need from a social network.

    By Ivars Peterson
  3. Math

    Sliding Around

    Seemingly simple sliding-coin puzzles can be surpassingly tough.

    By Ivars Peterson
  4. Math

    Chaotic Moon

    Saturn's craggy moon Hyperion tumbles erratically as it orbits the planet.

    By Ivars Peterson
  5. Math

    Binary Dice

    A set of specially marked, black-and-white dice suggests novel puzzles and games.

    By Ivars Peterson
  6. Math

    Numbers of No Escape

    Playful iterative processes can get you stuck in mathemagical black holes.

    By Ivars Peterson
  7. Math

    Tying Down a Random Walk

    Knotting a necktie poses mechanical and mathematical challenges.

    By Ivars Peterson
  8. Math

    A Mathemusical Potpourri

    Turning numbers and mathematical ideas into musical tones comes in many flavors.

    By Ivars Peterson
  9. Math

    Celestial Atomic Physics

    Insights from atomic physics lead to new routes for spacecraft.

    By Ivars Peterson
  10. Math

    Fermat’s Natural Spirals

    Using points to trace out spirals produces intriguing secondary patterns.

    By Ivars Peterson
  11. Math

    Primes, Palindromes, and Pyramids

    Prime numbers that have the same sequence of digits whether read forward or backward can be built into pyramids.

    By Ivars Peterson
  12. Math

    Knotted Strings and Inca Accounts

    Researchers are starting to untangle mysterious Inca messages encoded in knotted strings.

    By Ivars Peterson