Moore’s Law ends in 10 years, physicist claims

Moore’s Law ends in 10 years, physicist claims | Fox News: "Transistors inside new Intel CPUs unveiled last week are hundreds of times thinner than a human hair, thanks to a 22-nanometer manufacturing process that the company says ‘fuels Moore’s Law for years to come.’

Not everyone agrees.

Theoretical physicist Michio Kaku believes instead that an end to Moore’s famous theory is -- at last -- in sight.

'In about 10 years or so, we will see the collapse of Moore’s Law,' said Kaku, professor of theoretical physics at City University of New York (CUNY)."

First-ever image of a flat torus in 3D

Mathematics: First-ever image of a flat torus in 3D: "Just as a terrestrial globe cannot be flattened without distorting the distances, it seemed impossible to visualize abstract mathematical objects called flat tori in ordinary three-dimensional space. However, a French team of mathematicians and computer scientists has succeeded in constructing and visually representing an image of a flat torus in three-dimensional space. This is a smooth fractal, halfway between fractals and ordinary surfaces. The results are published in PNAS."

Mathematicians say magnetic fields can send particles to infinity

Mathematicians say magnetic fields can send particles to infinity | R&D Mag: "Researchers from the Complutense University of Madrid (UCM, Spain) have mathematically shown that particles charged in a magnetic field can escape into infinity without ever stopping. One of the conditions is that the field is generated by current loops situated on the same plane.     At the moment this is a theoretical mathematical study, but two researchers from UCM have recently proved that, in certain conditions, magnetic fields can send particles to infinity, according to the study published in the journal Quarterly of Applied Mathematics.     "If a particle 'escapes' to infinity it means two things: that it will never stop, and "something else", Antonio Diaz-Cano, one of the authors, explained to SINC. Regarding the first, the particle can never stop, but it can be trapped, doing circles forever around a point, never leaving an enclosed space.     However, the "something else" goes beyond the established limits. "If we imagine a spherical surface with a large radius, the particle will cross the surface going away from it, however big the radius may be" the researcher declares."

Man Uses Physics to Fight $400 Traffic Ticket

Man Uses Physics to Fight $400 Traffic Ticket | NBC San Diego: "A UCSD physicist used his knowledge and a little creativity to get himself out of a $400 traffic ticket.

Dmirti Krioukov was issued a traffic ticket for failing to completely stop at a stop sign. Instead of paying the ticket or going to traffic school, the physicist fought the citation by writing a four-page paper explaining how the ticket he was given defies physics.

Using his knowledge of angular and linear motion, Krioukov prepared a paper for the judge in his case and was able to argue – and prove – his innocence.

The paper explained how what the officer “thought” he saw, he didn’t really see, according to the laws of physics.

“Therefore my argument in the court went as follows: that what he saw would be easily confused by the angle of speed of this hypothetical object that failed to stop at the stop sign. And therefore, what he saw did not properly reflect reality, which was completely different," said Krioukov.

Before others try the “physics defense” in before a judge, Krioukov warned that it took a perfect combination of events for his argument to legitimately hold up.

By the way, when asked if he really did stop at the stop sign, the physicist stuck to his argument.

“Of course I did,” he said with a smile."

 

New IBM App Presents Nearly 1,000 Years of Math History

New IBM App Presents Nearly 1,000 Years of Math History | Gadget Lab | Wired.com: "Math nerds and historians, it’s time to get excited. Minds of Modern Mathematics, a new iPad app released Thursday by IBM, presents an interactive timeline of the history of mathematics and its impact on society from 1000 to 1960.

The app is based on an original, 50-foot-long “Men of Modern Mathematics” installation created in 1964 by Charles and Ray Eames. Minds of Modern Mathematics users can view a digitized version of the original infographic as well as browse through an interactive timeline with more than 500 biographies, math milestones, and images of relevant artifacts.

IBM hopes that classes and students will use the app, provoking more people to pursue math, science, or technology-related educations and jobs.

“Careers of the future will rely heavily on creativity, critical thinking, problem solving and collaboration — all themes that were core to the ‘Minds of Modern Mathematics’ movement and remain equally relevant today,” Chid Apte, IBM Director of analytics Research and Mathematical Sciences said in a press release. “What better way than a mobile app to reintroduce this timeless classic to inspire a new generation of learners?”

Starting from the first French pope to celebrated mathematician John von Neumann, users can see every major math-related event or person in a visually impressive layout. You can tap on an entry to read more about it, and view how math events and math superstars relate in time to other historical events, such as the First Crusade that seizes Jerusalem and the signing of The Declaration of Independence."

 

Counting on mathematics, now more than ever

Counting on mathematics, now more than ever — Opinion — Bangor Daily News — BDN Maine: "Recently, someone asked me how many of the following four names I recognized: Jeremy Linn, Andrei Markov, Meryl Streep and Isaac Schoenberg, and I’d like to pose the same question to you.

My guess is you will recognize two of the four. Actually, the quiz is a fraud. It’s just my awkward way of announcing that April is National Mathematics Awareness Month and to make a basic point that although mathematics never makes headlines like an NBA star or winning an Oscar, it might play a more important role in our daily lives, and that’s where the two unrecognizable names on the list come in.

Andrei Markov was a Russian mathematician who in 1906 worked out a mathematical theory, called Markov Chains, for describing how many physical systems evolve over time. Such a system might be anything from a baseball game, a frog jumping from lily pad to lily pad, the evolution of a biological population of bacteria or even a person surfing the Internet, clicking from one Web page to another."