Here are the most popular Math Photos from MrHonner.com for 2012. Click here to see more.
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| Isosceles Triangle in Nature | Beautiful Diagrams | Riemann Building |
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| 400 Meter Oval | Sculpture of Spheres | Anamorphic Art |
Appreciation Numbers
12/20/2012 — Another Permutation Day!
Today we celebrate our final Permutation Day of the year! I call days like today permutation days because the digits of the day and month can be rearranged to form the year.
Not only is today a permutation day, but it is also a transposition day! A transposition is a rearrangement that simply swaps too things, like ’12’ and ’20’.
Celebrate Permutation Day by mixing things up! Try doing things in a different order today, or maybe try swapping two things in your schedule to honor today’s transposition!
Application Appreciation
Mona Lisa and Information Theory
This pointilist images puts me in mind of some fundamental ideas of information theory.
Even though you are seeing a limited set of data here, 140 dots, each of uniform color, it is fairly clear what this image represents. (Hint: standing a bit farther back might help!)
A fundamental concept in information theory is the compression of information. Suppose you want to communicate something, like a painting: a mathematical way to do this would be to describe the color of each pixel, in some order. That would require the transmission, reception, and translation of millions, or even billions, of numbers.
Here we see a very complicated and intricate image being communicated with a very small set of data. Finding more efficient ways to pass along (and store) information is more important than ever before, and is a focus of much modern mathematics.
Of course, recognition of this image relies on the experience of the viewer, who must bring the appropriate context to this information in order to decode it. But that is required in all successful communication.
Appreciation Numbers
12/02/2012 — Another Permutation Day!
Today we celebrate another Permutation Day! I call days like today permutation days because the digits of the day and month can be rearranged to form the year.
We’ve enjoyed several permutation day this year, and we’re not done yet!
Celebrate Permutation Day by mixing things up! Try doing things in a different order today. Just remember, for some operations, order definitely matters!