Articles
The Abakcus team shares their best articles to read on topics like mathematics, science, creativity, productivity and more. Ready to dive in? You can use the categories below to browse some of the best articles.
Abakcus is the collection of perfect articles about mathematics and science.
Sherlock Holmes’ Most Difficult Math Problem: Bicycle Tracks
On a snowy day in London, as he was lying in bed and gazing at the ceiling, Sherlock Holmes’ mind was once again at work trying to crack yet another…
How One Man’s Bad Math Helped Ruin Decades Of English Soccer
From the more mature sabermetric movements of baseball and basketball to growing ones in soccer and hockey, evidence-based examination has led to new thoughts and ideas about the games we…
The Father of Infinity and Modern Mathematics: Georg Cantor
“In mathematics the art of proposing a question must be held of higher value than solving it.” That analysis below belongs to the undervalued genius of his time, Georg Cantor. One…
Why Nature Prefers Hexagons?
How do bees do it? The honeycombs in which they store their amber nectar are marvels of precision engineering, an array of prism-shaped cells with a perfectly hexagonal cross-section. The…
Doing the Touchy Math on Who Should Get a COVID Vaccine First?
Mathematicians model pandemic scenarios by plugging thorny ethical and logistical issues into calculations If the book of nature is written in the language of mathematics, as Galileo once declared, the…
How to Use Math to Dominate at Monopoly?
Monopoly is one of the classic American games. It’s played among close friends, loved ones, and trusted business partners. It’s also one of the few times in life where it’s…
Joe Freedman’s Amazing Cycloid Drawing Machine
I’m going to be saying many good things about Mr. Freedman’s drawing machine, so I need to clarify at the start that I have not invested in his enterprise, I…
In Defense of Pure Mathematics
After 75 years, Godfrey Harold Hardy’s A Mathematician’s Apology still fuels debate over pure versus applied mathematics. Godfrey Harold Hardy was one of the greatest number theorists of the 20th…
The Mathematics Behind Sudoku: Solving Strategy
Copy the below 9×9 grid and complete it so that each row, each column, and each 3×3 box with a wide margin contains each of the numbers 1 to 9…
Why Preschool Shouldn’t Be Like School?
New research shows that teaching kids more and more, at ever-younger ages, may backfire. Ours is an age of pedagogy. Anxious parents instruct their children more and more, at younger…
How Our 1,000-Year-Old Math Curriculum Cheats America’s Kids?
Imagine you had to take an art class in which you were taught how to paint a fence or a wall, but you were never shown the paintings of the…
How to Photograph a Meteor Shower?
Taking photographs of a meteor shower can be an exercise in patience as meteors streak across the sky quickly and unannounced, but with these tips – and some good fortune…
The Complex Geometry of Islamic Design
In Islamic culture, geometry is everywhere. You can find it in mosques, madrasas, palaces and private homes. This tradition began in the 8th century CE during the early history of…
The Man Who Fell From Space: Felix Baumgartner
Sage advice can be gleaned indirectly from the words of men who’ve done amazing things. In this interview series by Jim Clash called “The Right Stuff,” we share nuggets of…
How a 19th Century Math Genius Carl Friedrich Gauss Taught Us the Best Way to Hold a Pizza Slice?
We’ve all been there. You pick up a slice of pizza and you’re about to take a bite, but it flops over and dangles limply from your fingers instead. The crust…
Everything Worth Knowing About The Periodic Table
Learn all about the 118 combinations of protons, neutrons, and electrons that make up our world. Whether hung on classroom walls, put up in dorm rooms or screen-printed on T-shirts,…
How To Easily Remember the Unit Circle
I work in a walk-in tutor lab at my university, and one of the other tutors showed me this a couple of years back and changed my life. First, you make…
Could We Create Dark Matter?
85% of the matter in our universe is a mystery. We don’t know what it’s made of, which is why we call it dark matter. But we know it’s out…
How Close Are Computers to Automating Mathematical Reasoning?
Paul Cohen, legendary for his daring methods in set theory, predicted that all of mathematics could be automated, including the writing of proofs.
Living in Alan Turing’s Future
More than a decade has passed since the British government issued an apology to the mathematician Alan Turing. “On behalf of . . . all those who live freely thanks to Alan’s work,”…
The Cicada’s Love Affair With Prime Numbers
As far back as the seventeen-hundreds, fur trappers for the Hudson’s Bay Company noted that while in some years they would collect an enormous number of Canadian lynx pelts, in…
Math of the Penguins
Animals have evolved to protect against the cold in myriad ways. Whales insulate with blubber. Bison congregate near geothermal springs. Black bears shelter in caves. And emperor penguins, facing Antarctica’s…
How a Brand of Chalk Achieved Cult Status Among Mathematicians?
Some call it the Rolls Royce of chalk, the Steinway of writing utensils. Some say it’s unbreakable, others say it leaves no dust behind. And it turned the world’s brightest…
All articles loaded
No more articles to load
