Here’s a nice feature from NewScientist magazine: Eight secret codes we still can’t crack.
http://www.newscientist.com/special/unbreakable-codes
Each code–like the Kryptos monument outside CIA headquarters , or the MIT Time-Lock Puzzle–is profiled in a short article.
Something compelled me to photograph this building as I was strolling around one steamy afternoon.
And then I realized why: it reminded me of a 3-dimensional Riemann sum!
I did not attempt to estimate its volume.
Through Math for America, I am part of an on-going collaboration with the New York Times Learning Network. My latest contribution, a Test Yourself quiz-question, can be found here:
https://learning.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/06/08/test-yourself-math-june-8-2011/
This question is based on rising gas prices and their effects on family budgets and consumer behavior.
Packing things poses some surprisingly complicated mathematical problems. Like some of the nastiest problems in math, there isn’t necessarily a standard algorithm you can use to figure out how to pack things efficiently.
I tried to put five hard-boiled eggs in a cylindrical tupperware container.
But the top wouldn’t quite close.
Perturbed, I squeezed the eggs into the cylinder in a different manner. This took some doing, as they kept falling over.
But they fit! And amazingly, they didn’t even touch the bottom!
This is a nice chart from the Chronicle of Higher Education that compares average salaries by college major.
http://chronicle.com/article/Median-Earnings-by-Major-and/127604/
Each vertical bar represents a high-level category (like Social Science or Engineering) and by scrolling over each bar you see a detailed breakdown of salary by specific major (like Poly Sci or Architecture).
Not surprisingly, math majors do pretty well, and the more applied, the better!