News tagged with mathematics

Hovering not hard if you're top-heavy, researchers find

Top-heavy structures are more likely to maintain their balance while hovering in the air than are those that bear a lower center of gravity, researchers at New York University's Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences ...

Physics / General Physics

created 5 hours ago | popularity 5 / 5 (1) | comments 1 | with audio podcast

A frank discussion of the power law and linking correlation to causation

(PhysOrg.com) -- Michael Stumpf a mathematics professor at Imperial College in London, and Mason Porter a lecturer at Oxford have teamed together to write and publish a perspective piece in Science regarding the in ...

Other Sciences / Mathematics

created 9 hours ago | popularity 5 / 5 (2) | comments 2 | with audio podcast report

Obstacles no barrier to higher speeds for worms, researchers find

Obstacles in an organism's path can help it to move faster, not slower, researchers from New York University's Applied Math Lab at the Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences have found through a series ...

Biology / Plants & Animals

created Feb 08, 2012 | popularity 3 / 5 (1) | comments 3 | with audio podcast

Fall of Communism changed mathematics in US: New study

The collapse of the Soviet Union in 1992 brought an influx of Soviet mathematicians to U.S. institutions, and those scholars' differing areas of specialization have changed the way math is studied and taught in this country, ...

Other Sciences / Mathematics

created Feb 07, 2012 | popularity 3 / 5 (2) | comments 0

Warning! Collision imminent! The brain's quick interceptions help you navigate the world

Researchers at The Neuro and the University of Maryland have figured out the mathematical calculations that specific neurons employ in order to inform us of our distance from an object and the 3-D velocities of moving objects ...

Medicine & Health / Neuroscience

created Feb 07, 2012 | popularity 5 / 5 (5) | comments 1 | with audio podcast

Scientists predict where seabirds forage

Researchers have used information about seabird colonies and food availability to create a mathematical model which predicts where they forage for food during the breeding season.

Biology / Ecology

created Feb 07, 2012 | popularity 5 / 5 (1) | comments 0

Learning about material integrity from statistical data

Whether it protects space satellites or sequesters nuclear waste, scientists want to understand tiny features that could significantly alter how a material behaves. Locating microscopic defects can be done ...

Chemistry / Materials Science

created Feb 07, 2012 | popularity 3 / 5 (1) | comments 0

Researchers weigh methods to more accurately measure genome sequencing

Lost in the euphoria of the 2003 announcement that the human genome had been sequenced was a fundamental question: how can we be sure that an individual's genome has been read correctly?

Medicine & Health / Genetics

created Feb 03, 2012 | popularity 5 / 5 (3) | comments 0

Predicting system crashes in nature and society

The world can deliver sudden and nasty shocks. Economies can crash, fisheries can collapse, and climates can pass tipping points. Providing early warning of such changes currently requires the collection of enormous and often ...

Biology / Ecology

created Feb 02, 2012 | popularity 4 / 5 (4) | comments 0

Understanding basic concepts in spatial measurement

In a first or second grade classroom, a teacher asks students to take a ruler and measure (in inches) the length of a rectangular block. A student aligns the "0 inch" mark of the ruler with the end of the ...

Other Sciences / Social Sciences

created Feb 01, 2012 | popularity 2.5 / 5 (2) | comments 0

Researchers seek to beat 'molecular obesity'

(PhysOrg.com) -- Researchers from the University of Dundee have come up with a new innovative approach in the quest to reduce failure rates in the drug discovery process and fight 'molecular obesity'.

Chemistry / Biochemistry

created Jan 26, 2012 | popularity 5 / 5 (1) | comments 0 | with audio podcast

PhET simulations provide interactive learning tools

(PhysOrg.com) -- What causes a balloon to stick to a sweater? How do microwaves heat coffee? How is electricity generated from a bar magnet?

Other Sciences / Social Sciences

created Jan 26, 2012 | popularity not rated yet | comments 0

New model shows how often to review material for flashcard programs

(PhysOrg.com) -- A challenge for students and teachers -- and today, for designers of educational software: How often should material be reviewed for best learning? Wait too long to review and it fades away; review too soon ...

Other Sciences / Mathematics

created Jan 26, 2012 | popularity 4.5 / 5 (2) | comments 1 | with audio podcast

Aiding cancer therapy by mathematically modeling tumor-immune interactions

Cancer is one of the five leading causes of death. And yet, despite decades of research, there is no standardized first-line treatment for most cancers. In addition, disappointing results from predominant second-line treatments ...

Other Sciences / Mathematics

created Jan 25, 2012 | popularity not rated yet | comments 0

Mathematics confirm the chaos of the Spanish labor market

Unemployment time series in Spain behave in a chaotic way according to a study at the University of Seville. Such chaos demonstrates the complex and unpredictable nature of the Spanish labour market in the ...

Other Sciences / Mathematics

created Jan 25, 2012 | popularity 1 / 5 (1) | comments 0

Mathematics

Mathematics is the science and study of quantity, structure, space, and change. Mathematicians seek out patterns, formulate new conjectures, and establish truth by rigorous deduction from appropriately chosen axioms and definitions.

There is debate over whether mathematical objects such as numbers and points really exist or whether they are manmade. The mathematician Benjamin Peirce called mathematics "the science that draws necessary conclusions". Albert Einstein, on the other hand, stated that "as far as the laws of mathematics refer to reality, they are not certain; and as far as they are certain, they do not refer to reality."

Through the use of abstraction and logical reasoning, mathematics evolved from counting, calculation, measurement, and the systematic study of the shapes and motions of physical objects. Practical mathematics has been a human activity for as far back as written records go (see: History of Mathematics). Rigorous arguments first appeared in Greek mathematics, most notably in Euclid's Elements. Mathematics continued to develop, in fitful bursts, until the Renaissance, when mathematical innovations interacted with new scientific discoveries, leading to an acceleration in research that continues to the present day.

Today, mathematics is used throughout the world as an essential tool in many fields, including natural science, engineering, medicine, and the social sciences. Applied mathematics, the branch of mathematics concerned with application of mathematical knowledge to other fields, inspires and makes use of new mathematical discoveries and sometimes leads to the development of entirely new disciplines. Mathematicians also engage in pure mathematics, or mathematics for its own sake, without having any application in mind, although practical applications for what began as pure mathematics are often discovered later.

For more information about Mathematics, read the full article at Wikipedia.
This text uses material from Wikipedia and is available under the GNU Free Documentation License.