Surface and area in mathematics: a little terminology | Tangente
A little terminology…
Everyday language often conflates the notions of surface and area.

Everyday language often conflates the notions of surface and area.

Articles recommended for you.

What could be more fascinating than soap bubbles? They are beautiful, soothing, with their regular shapes and lovely iridescent colors. But they are also an object of mathematical study. And they hold plenty of surprises for us!

What if our universe were actually discrete? If confirmed, a bold theory known as loop quantum gravity could reconcile the physics of macroscopic gravitational fields with quantum physics. Spin plays a fundamental role in this theory.

What's presented here isn't a game of five families, but a family of five games (siblings and cousins!) — blocking games, in which a player leaves the game once they can no longer play. All of them concern geometry. In particular, the pieces in these games take many forms, made up of squares, triangles, line segments and cubes.

The sphere came to be seen as a model of the world because of its perfection. Greek mathematicians soon sought to measure its properties, laying the groundwork for calculation techniques that would not bear fruit until centuries later.
Discussion
Sign in to post a comment and talk with other readers.
No comments yet. Be the first to respond.