Pascal's intellect helped him blaze trails in mathematics | The Tennessean | tennessean.com

Pascal's intellect helped him blaze trails in mathematics | The Tennessean | tennessean.com: "In 1642, when he was 19, Blaise Pascal thought he would try to ease his father’s burdens.

His father, Etienne Pascal, had been appointed chief tax collector in Rouen, France. The position was demanding, requiring hours of work each day adding up taxes due and paid. Blaise Pascal had an idea to speed up the arithmetical drudgery. Pascal, already a noted mathematician, built the first mechanical calculator and presented it to the chancellor of France in 1645. The machines were very expensive; he made about 20 of them."

Mathematics 'the key' to solving transport woes

Mathematics 'the key' to solving transport woes: "Imagine buses turning up every five minutes, and schedules that could deliver passengers to just about anywhere across the city. Impossible? Laughably expensive?

Professor Mark Wallace from the Monash University's Faculty of Information Technology says it's a goer. Mathematics, not massive infrastructure spending, is the key.

'You'd need twice as many buses, not 10 times as most people might imagine,' he says.

Some of the initiatives to make it work include adaptive scheduling (where the local schedule is flexible, and responds to direct consumer demand); more bus lanes; and, a system where local bus networks talk to one another and have coordinated changeover stations, so you have more efficient use of the limited bus numbers, which works against traffic congestion."

Mathematics is not a friend of baseball | Dallas-Fort Worth Sports News - Sports News on the ...

Mathematics is not a friend of baseball | Dallas-Fort Worth Sports News - Sports News on the ...: "The counting craze that once was cute and chic is now all but ruining America’s second favorite pastime.

Scores of math whizzes, nerds and live-in-their-parents’-basement geeks are threatening to turn Royals at Rangers into a Bobby Fischer vs. Boris Spassky chess match, minus the intellect.

This absurd baseball math obsession is now spilling over into basketball, hockey and football; in a few months, this trend will turn your child’s dodgeball game into a series of where is the best place to put little Jimmy so as to ensure his greatest chances of being able to dip, dive, duck and dodge.

Baseball was never intended to be math homework, but now baseball fans are watching pitch counts more closely than we do wins/losses, strikeouts or ERAs.

Kids, don’t listen to your parents or teachers. In this case, math is not your friend."

Texas banker puts up $1M for tricky math solution - Houston Chronicle

Texas banker puts up $1M for tricky math solution - Houston Chronicle: "A Texas banker is upping the ante to $1 million for whoever solves a tricky problem that's been dogging mathematicians since the 1980s.

The Providence, R.I.-based American Mathematical Society on Tuesday said $1 million will be awarded for the publication of a solution to the Beal Conjecture number theory problem.

Dallas banker D. Andrew Beal first offered the Beal Prize in 1997 for $5,000. Over the years, the amount has grown.

American Mathematical Society spokesman Michael Breen says a solution is more difficult than the one for a related problem, Fermat's Last Theorem, which didn't have a published solution for hundreds of years.

Beal is a self-taught mathematician and says he wants to inspire young people to pursue math and science."