The ‘Scutoid’ Is Geometry’s Newest Shape, and It Could Be All Over Your Body
Scientists have just defined a new shape called the scutoid (SCOO-toid) while studying epithelial cells, the building blocks of embryos that eventually end up forming our skin and lining our organs and blood vessels. They think the scutoid shape is extremely efficient at keeping cells tightly-packed and organized in the literal twists and turns of … Continued
What Shapes Are Things in Outer Space?
It’s an orgy of geometry, here on Earth. You got all kinds of shapes: Squares, trapezoids, even the occasional rhombus. Apples, desk-chairs, and dandelions—just an abundance of shape-having stuff. Outer space, in contrast, is minimally decorated: asteroids, stars, planets, galaxies. Big-picture stuff. We know the Earth is round—or, at least, most of us do—but what … Continued
How the Geometry of Movies Can Change the Way We Think
Circles. Triangles. Squares. Those aren’t the things you expect to see in a movie but films have been using shapes to subtly influence emotion for a long time. Circles are lovable, triangles are evil, and squares are boring. Now You See It highlights the geometry used in shots to show you how movies use shapes … Continued
The View Across the Ocean Is Not What You Think
As a kid I spent a lot of time on the Maryland shore. Squinting out across the endless blue expanse, I could have sworn I saw the edge of Portugal once or twice. I was shocked recently to learn that my childhood imagination had it all wrong. (Truly, a first.) With telescopic vision, I wouldn’t … Continued
This Babylonian Astronomy Text Changes History
More than a thousand years before the first telescopes, Babylonian astronomers tracked the motion of planets across the night sky using simple arithmetic. But a newly translated text reveals that these ancient stargazers also used a far more advanced method, one that foreshadows the development of calculus over a thousand years later. It’s a well-known … Continued
Mathematicians Have Found Crazy New Ways to Cut Pizza Into Equal Slices
Cutting a pizza can be a stressful experience: are the slices equal? Now, a team of mathematicians has found some new ways to cut pizzas into exotic slices, while still ensuring that the all-important size considerations are met. The slicing of pizza is an oddly well-researched area of mathematics, principally because it has less to … Continued
This Mathematical Guide Will Help You Neatly Wrap Any Gift
Do all the presents you give away over the holidays look like they were wrapped in the dark? Don’t worry: this video features a series of mathematical tricks to help you ensure your gifts always look neatly wrapped. Covering the full gamut of geometrical shapes and squishy items, mathematician Katie Steckles shows us how to … Continued
Can You Solve Isaac Newton’s Tree Puzzle?
This week’s puzzle is not about gravity, though you’d be excused for suspecting as much. After all, when most people read “Isaac Newton” and “tree” in the same sentence, they think also of falling apples. But this week’s puzzle, which is widely attributed to Newton, is actually an exercise in orderly arboriculture. Sunday Puzzles #42: … Continued
How Will You Celebrate The Pi Day Of The Century?
Happy Pi Day! How are you celebrating the transcendental, irrational mathematical constant central derived from circles on 3/14/15 at 9:26:53? For me, it’s going to be giggling over physicists engaging in an epic chalk battle, and devouring an apple-ginger pie. Pi Day is the best reason ever to bake a pie for breakfast. Image credit: … Continued
How To Prove A Geometric Formula With A Clementine And A Piece of Paper
Here’s a fun demonstration from Cornell maths professor Steven Strogatz. Take a clementine (or any spherical, peelable fruit) and trace around its widest part four times. Then peel it. Flatten out the peelings as best you can and divvy them up evenly among the circles. Voilà! Tangible proof that the the surface area of a … Continued
The Best Impossible Pasta Shapes Made Real By 3D-Printing
Traditional pasta extruders, as mesmerizing as they are, can only handle so much complex geometry. Barilla recently held a competition for 3D-printed pasta shapes, and the winners include unusual shapes like a blooming rose and cratered moon. As the largest pasta maker in the world, Barilla has recently dropped hints about wanting to make its … Continued
How Does This Mind-Bending Illusion Work?
No, there are no magnets in there. The ball is rolling just the way you see it. This illusion is the work of mathematics professor, Kokichi Sugihara, from Meiji University and, if you’re wondering how he did it, the video below where he swaps the perspective of the illusion briefly to show you the other … Continued
Think You Know The Solution To This Classic Riddle? Think Again.
Today’s puzzle will be posed in two halves. The first half is a classic riddle – in fact, I suspect many of you will have heard it before. The second half, however, is an extension of the riddle that reveals its most common solution be be insufficient. Sunday Puzzle #3: The Bear Hunter (Part 1) … Continued
You Are Cutting Your Bagels Wrong
How are you cutting your bagels? With a boring straight down the middle cut, or into a delicious linked breakfast chain, using the Mobius strip method? Computer science professor and sculptor George Hart put together this video showing his method for slicing a bagel using a two-twist Mobius strip as the cutting guide. The result? … Continued
The Best Kind of Math Is Edible, Chocolate Math
Chocolatier Rafael Mutter’s Chocolate Mill looks like a solid, cylindrical block of chocolate. In reality, it’s ten-layers thick. As a a crank-turned blade shaves wafers of chocolate from the top, the underlying layers, each one flavored with a unique pattern of chocolate shapes, is revealed. A timelapse of the piece appears above. According to Chris … Continued