All Stories by Ivars Peterson
- Math
Quirks of video poker
Even with perfect play over a long time, unfavorable odds and limits on how much a gambler may win per machine make playing video poker into a losing game.
- Math
Reassessing an ancient artifact
The famous Mesopotamian clay tablet known as Plimpton 322 represents an ordered list of worked examples that a teacher would use to prepare a sequence of closely related questions about squares and reciprocals for student exercises.
- Math
Scheduled random walks skirt collisions
Researchers in theoretical computer science have made progress in settling the question of whether a clairvoyant scheduler can regulate the timing of moves by random walkers on a grid to keep them from ever colliding.
- Math
Folding Maps
Anyone trying to refold an opened road map is wrestling with the same sort of challenges confronted by origami designers and sheet metal benders. The problem of returning a creased sheet to its neatly folded state gets tougher when you’re not sure if the sheet can be folded into a flat packet and when you’re […]
- Math
Folding Maps
Anyone trying to refold an opened road map is wrestling with the same sort of challenges confronted by origami designers and sheet metal benders. The problem of returning a creased sheet to its neatly folded state gets tougher when you’re not sure if the sheet can be folded into a flat packet and when you’re […]
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- Math
Proof clarifies a map-folding problem
Researchers have developed an efficient algorithm to determine, given a collection of creases on a piece of paper, whether a sequence of simple folds produces a flat result, like a folded road map.
- Math
Prime proof zeros in on crucial numbers
A new theorem may lead to a proof of Catalan's conjecture, a venerable problem in number theory concerning consecutive powers of whole numbers.
- Computing
Calculating Swarms
Ant teamwork suggests models for computing faster and organizing better.
- Math
Global contest nets encryption standard
A data-scrambling scheme called Rijndael was selected to become the federal government's new formula for protecting sensitive, unclassified information.
- Math
Unlocking Puzzling Polygons
Proof settles a wickedly prickly question about unfurling crinkly polygons.
- Computing
Going to digital extremes
A researcher designs the ultimate laptop, stretching the laws of physics to their limits to achieve blazing computation rates.
