Sur les blogs — les derniers billets des blogs de mathématiques

This looks like a Rubik's Cube, but it's not: It seems that an open-cab truck filled to the brim with Rubik's Cubes hit a bump in the road, causing some of the cubes to spill out of the truck bed and onto the roadway. When, mere moments later, those cubes got run over by a [...]

Base two numerals can be awkward to compute with, and Roman numerals are even more awkward. But awkward is not the same as bad. Today I'll tell you about a truly awful numeral system—possibly the very worst ever proposed as a way of doing arithmetic—but I claim that even such an abominable system is useful [...]

"Oh, it's just a trick thing." – Ben Ames Williams, Coconuts Here are six puzzles, some of them classics, that don't look much alike on the surface. After stating them, I'll give a hint about what they have in common. Then I'll present solutions that all make use of the same slick trick in one [...]

[Note to reader: This is a sequel to my widely-circulated 2021 essay "The Great Solar Bleed-Out Scam"; for the sake of readers who have forgotten or never read that earlier essay, I include it here.] April 1, 2021: Dr. Jeremiah Browne of NASA, Dr. Marissa Carson of NASA, and many other people from all over [...]

Ask a silly question, get a silly answer. — Tom Lehrer, "New Math" I ask too many questions. A case in point is the time I lost out on a place I wanted to rent when I asked my potential future landlord one question too many ("Does the pond have mosquitos in the summer?"). Another [...]