The Aperiodical 

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From Zero to Hero: a Euclidean proof

By Colin Beveridge. Posted June 18, 2024

It used to live, unloved, in the A-level formula book: a mysterious result relating the area of a triangle to its sides. The most interesting thing about it was its name: Heron’s formula. (As far as I can make out, the chap’s name was Hero of Alexandria, and if you do a possessive in Greek it goes into the genitive case, which makes it Heron’s Formula. You might want to debate this; I regretfully decline.)

The Call To Adventure

Love Triangle is available wherever good books etc. are, from June 20th – and signed preorders are available from Maths Gear

So there I was, peacefully proofreading Matt Parker’s forthcoming book Love Triangle when I was shocked by a vicious — and frankly unprovoked — assault on the very idea of Heron’s formula.

HLF Blogs: Is mathematics idealistic or realistic?

By Katie Steckles. Posted October 30, 2017

In September, Katie and Paul spent a week blogging from the Heidelberg Laureate Forum – a week-long maths conference where current young researchers in maths and computer science can meet and hear talks by top-level prize-winning researchers. For more information about the HLF, visit the Heidelberg Laureate Forum website.



5th Heidelberg Laureate Forum 2017, Heidelberg, Germany, Picture/Credit: Christian Flemming/HLF

The closing talk of the HLF’s main lecture programme (before the young researchers and laureates head off to participate in scientific interaction with SAP representatives to discuss maths and computer science in industry) was given by Fields Medalist Steve Smale.

An answer to what Shouryya Ray’s ‘unsolved Newton problem’ was

By Peter Rowlett. Posted June 24, 2012

You may remember a story, widely reported, that 16 year old student Shouryya Ray from Dresden had solved “puzzles posed by Sir Isaac Newton that have baffled mathematicians for 350 years“. You may have read our write up of this, which concluded that

it is likely that some piece of impressive work has been completed and Shouryya Ray is to be commended. However, pending further information on the work, we are now fairly convinced that this is being overblown by the press reports.

You may also remember that some reports had Ray coming across the problems “during a school trip to Dresden University where professors claimed they were uncrackable”. Now an open letter has appeared on the webpages of the Technische Universität Dresden signed by Prof. Dr. Ralph Chill and Prof. Dr. Jürgen Voigt, which offers some answers.

Has schoolboy genius solved problems that baffled mathematicians for centuries?

By Peter Rowlett and Christian Lawson-Perfect. Posted May 28, 2012

The Daily Mail reports that a “schoolboy ‘genius'” has solved “puzzles” “posed by” Issac Newton that have “baffled mathematicians for 350 years”. There are many nonsense warning signs but also hints that something interesting is going on.