历史与综述
Late-Babylonian mathematics (450-100 BC), represented by some 60 cuneiform tablets from Babylon and Uruk, is incompletely known compared to its abundantly preserved, well-studied Old-Babylonian predecessor (1800-1600 BC). With the present…
Let D be a compact convex domain in the plane. P\'olya & Szeg\"o and, independently, Levi & Pan defined the point p in D that is "best insulated from the boundary C of D". We compute p in the case when C is an isosceles right triangle,…
In this brief essay we succinctly comment on the historical origin of Hilbert geometry. In particular, we give a summary of the letter in which David Hilbert informs his friend and colleague Felix Klein about his discovery of this geometry.…
A new simple proof of Stirling's formula via the partial fraction expansion for the tangent function is presented.
In this paper we give a short biography of Harald Niederreiter and we spotlight some cornerstones from his wide-ranging work. We focus on his results on uniform distribution, algebraic curves, polynomials and quasi-Monte Carlo methods. In…
The Riemannian center of mass was constructed in [GrKa] (1973). In [GKR1, GKR2, Gr, Ka, BuKa] (1974-1981) it was successfully applied with more refined estimates. Probably in 1990 someone renamed it without justification into karcher mean…
Double-entry bookkeeping (DEB) implicitly uses a specific mathematical construction, the group of differences using pairs of unsigned numbers ("T-accounts"). That construction was only formulated abstractly in mathematics in the 19th…
We present an elementary proof of the fundamental theorem of algebra, following Cauchy's version but avoiding his use of circular functions. It is written in the same spirit as Littlewood's proof of 1941, but reduces it to more elementary…
We research a combinatorial game based on the Cookie Monster problem called the Cookie Monster game that generalizes the games of Nim and Wythoff. We also propose several combinatorial games that are in between the Cookie Monster game and…
Fermat, Leibniz, Euler, and Cauchy all used one or another form of approximate equality, or the idea of discarding "negligible" terms, so as to obtain a correct analytic answer. Their inferential moves find suitable proxies in the context…
Personal recollections about Alexandre Grothendieck and early days of his theory of motives
In 1760, Leonhard Euler began to write beautiful Letters to a German Princess on Diverse Subjects of Physics and Philosophy. Much has been written about Euler and his work, but we wonder, who was the princess? How did she become involved…
No woman of science has lived a more controversial life nor possessed a most contrasting character than Gabrielle Emilie Le Tonnelier, Marquise du Chatelet. One one hand, she was a woman of great intelligence, a philosopher of science, a…
Leonhard Euler, the most prolific mathematician in history, contributed to advance a wide spectrum of topics in celestial mechanics. At the Saint Petersburg Observatory, Euler observed sunspots and tracked the movements of the Moon.…
This paper contains a discussion of a library of formalized mathematics for the proof assistant Coq which the author worked on in 2011-13.
In his 1879 paper on the Begriffsschrift, Gottlob Frege introduced a notation to formalize mathematical arguments. In this note we explain Frege's notation by using the nowadays common notions from elementary propositional logic. We compare…
A directed graph, called an M-graph, is attached to every melody. Our chief concern in this paper is to investigate (1) how the positivity of the slope of the M-graph is related to singability of the melody, (2) when the M-graph has a…
Bill James invented the Pythagorean expectation in the late 70's to predict a baseball team's winning percentage knowing just their runs scored and allowed. His original formula estimates a winning percentage of ${\rm RS}^2/({\rm RS}^2+{\rm…
ApSimon's Mints problem is a very difficult and often misunderstood counterfeit-coin puzzle. I explain the problem and suggest ways to approach it, while giving several fun exercises for the reader.
This paper provides an approach to establishing the calculus method from the concept of mean, i.e., average. This approach is from a statistics perspective and can help calculus learners understand calculus ideas and analyze a function…