A few weeks ago I heard someone casually refer to ‘that formula of Euler’s that generates primes’. I hadn’t heard of this, but it turns out that in 1772 Euler produced this formula: \[ f(x) = x^2 + x + 41\text{.} \] Using this, \(f(0)=41\), which is prime. \(f(1)=43\), which is also prime. \(f(2)=47\) is…
Here’s a round-up of mathematical news from the last couple of months. Awards The 2024 Abel Prize has been awarded to Michel Talagrand, “for his groundbreaking contributions to probability theory and functional analysis, with outstanding applications in mathematical physics and statistics.” This year’s Turing Award has been given to Avi Wigderson, “for foundational contributions to…
The next issue of the Carnival of Mathematics, rounding up blog posts from the month of April 2024, is now online at Ioanna Georgiou’s blog. The Carnival rounds up maths blog posts from all over the internet, including some from our own Aperiodical. See our Carnival of Mathematics page for more information.
This is a guest post by Elliott Baxby, a maths undergraduate student who wants to share an appreciation of geometrical proofs. I remember the days well when I first learnt about loci and constructions – what a wonderful thing. Granted, I love doing them now; to be able to appreciate how Euclid developed his incredible…
In this series of posts, we’ll be featuring mathematical podcasts from all over the internet, by speaking to the creators of the podcast and asking them about what they do. We spoke to Marcello Seri and Marit van Straaten from the Bernoulli Institute at the University of Groningen, about their podcast, It’s Not Just Numbers.
With the emphasis on occasionally, I’m occasionally working to (sort of) recreate Martin Gardner’s cover images from Scientific American, the so-called Gardner’s Dozen. This time I’m looking at the cover image from the November 1959 issue. The column is ‘How three modern mathematicians disproved a celebrated conjecture of Leonhard Euler’, about the so-called Euler’s Spoilers,…
The next issue of the Carnival of Mathematics, rounding up blog posts from the month of March 2024, is now online at Tom Rocks Maths. The Carnival rounds up maths blog posts from all over the internet, including some from our own Aperiodical. See our Carnival of Mathematics page for more information.