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Dive into the fascinating world of mathematics with our captivating articles, written by passionate experts. Whether you are a curious amateur or a seasoned mathematician, our articles cover a wide range of topics, from fundamental concepts to the latest discoveries, including practical applications and philosophical reflections.
Writing large numbers: not so simple! | Tangente
Even with a positional decimal system, not everyone writes large numbers in the same way.
Pre-Columbian numeral systems | Tangente
In which we discover that South American civilizations did not wait for Christopher Columbus before adopting numeral systems
Telling the story of numbers
Describing quantities in terms other than "few" or "many," comparing them, manipulating them without touching or seeing them… All this depends on numbers. Numbers have preoccupied humankind since prehistoric times. So what is the story of the invention that changed the face of the world: numeral systems?
The Klein bottle
The bottle named after Felix Klein is a classic of topology, yet its mathematical properties are still sometimes poorly understood. Let's delve beneath the surface to uncover its connection with the Möbius strip.
Coloring the plane: when geometry gets involved | Tangente
For plane coloring, we already knew that four colors were enough to color any map so that no two neighboring countries ever had the same color.
Knot theory according to Jean-Michel Othoniel | Tangente
Jean-Michel Othoniel is an original sculptor in more ways than one. His exhibition "Géométries amoureuses" was held in Sète (Hérault) in 2017, and his current exhibition "Face à l'obscurité" has just closed at the MAMC in Saint-Etienne (Loire).
This is not a Möbius strip! | Tangente
Think you know everything about the Möbius strip, topology's quintessential object? Think again! Paper models of it have thickness, which undermines some of their properties. Let's explore these subtleties.
The story of a geometry unlike any other
A science that is hard to define in a few words, topology has found its way into geometry, analysis and even algebra. How did it emerge in the mathematical world? Where is it useful? And above all, what is topology? Let's look back at the birth of a new way of seeing our space…
Untangling the mysteries of rubbery deformations
The metric properties of modelling-clay objects change when they are deformed. Other properties, known as topological properties, remain unchanged. Surprisingly, algebra enters the picture. This naturally leads us to consider knots and the constituent molecules of DNA.
Breakthrough Prize awarded to Vincent Lafforgue | Tangente
French mathematician Vincent Lafforgue, brother of 2002 Fields Medalist Laurent Lafforgue, has won the 2019 Breakthrough Prize in Mathematics, worth $3 million, "for his fundamental and elegant contributions to the Langlands program in the function field case."
180 seconds of popular science | Tangente
Three minutes flat is not long to sum up a thesis—especially when the presentation has to be accessible to a wide audience. That is the daunting challenge faced each year by a number of French-speaking doctoral students in "My Thesis in 180 Seconds," modelled on the English-language Three Minute Thesis competition.
The SCM–FFJM competition | Tangente
Each year, the SCM, in partnership with the FFJM, organizes a research competition based on a mathematical problem drawn from "real life." This time, participants have until April 30 to study traffic congestion in Houston.
Tangente awards 2018
Ever since Napoleon's coronation in 1804, 2 December has been a day for coronations. Here are the many winners of Club Tangente's 2018 competitions and prizes, honoured at the Musée des Arts et Métiers.
The blablatech craze | Tangente
Discover the labels for the new jobs in artificial intelligence.
AI: Finance and markets love it!
The financial sector is not among the leaders in AI. Yet one of the fundamental mechanisms of neural networks—stochastic gradient descent—has a counterpart in financial markets. Banks are therefore beginning to adopt algorithmic methods for numerical computation.
Machine learning and neural networks
Neural networks are computational concepts born of the desire to imitate and model the human brain. They now underpin deep learning. With the emergence of new algorithms, these abstract ideas now lie at the heart of the digital revolution.
Machine translation: a challenge for the future
Born out of linguistic thinking in the immediate postwar period, machine translation later turned to purely statistical methods. More recently, a new approach has emerged, based on neural networks that mimic how the brain works.
AI for training | Tangente
The training landscape now includes a wide range of stakeholders. AI can be used in many ways, both in schools and in the workplace.
How computers sort photos
Automatically sorting files leads us to a broader question: how neural networks learn. Have you always wanted to "look under the hood" of artificial intelligence and find out "how it works"? Your vacation photos and a little mathematics will help…
Population dynamics: overcoming data scarcity | Tangente
In some fields, data are scarce. Descriptive statistics are out of the question! Mathematics offers other tools: topology and probability help ecologists predict how groups of species will evolve.