Monthly Archives: May 2009

Carnival of Mathematics: here, this Friday!

Posted on May 31, 2009 by

I will be hosting the Carnival of Mathematics here this Friday (June 5). Please send in your submissions! IMPORTANT: it’s a long story but I am not yet listed as the host on the blog carnival site, so DO NOT … Continue reading →

Posted in meta | Tagged , , | 6 Comments

MMM #33: Super divisible

Posted on May 25, 2009 by

This week’s Monday Math Madness is up at Wild About Math!. Looks like a fairly accessible problem this week: What’s the prime factorization of the smallest whole number that is divisible by all integers from 1 up to and including … Continue reading →

Posted in challenges, links, number theory, primes | Tagged , ,

Square roots with pencil and paper: the Babylonian method

Posted on May 18, 2009 by

Everyone knows how to add, subtract, multiply and divide with pencil and paper; but do you know how to find square roots without a calculator? (Incidentally, I highly recommend reading The Feeling of Power by Isaac Asimov, a short story … Continue reading →

Posted in algebra, computation, convergence, iteration, number theory | Tagged , , , | 10 Comments

Wolfram|Alpha

Posted on May 16, 2009 by

The Internet is abuzz with the release of Wolfram|Alpha, Wolfram’s new “computational knowledge engine”. (Wolfram is the company that makes Mathematica.) So I went to try it out. It’s sort of like a search engine in that you type in … Continue reading →

Posted in computation, links | Tagged | 5 Comments

Full Speed Ahead!

Posted on May 15, 2009 by

Hooray for summer! Now that finals are finally over, you can expect a lot more from me over the next few months. I’ve got a lot of exciting things planned, including a description and explanation of an algorithm for finding … Continue reading →

Posted in links, meta, people, video | Tagged , , , | 3 Comments