BERTRAND HAUCHECORNE
179 articles published in Tangente
History and CultureN°186Jan 22, 2019Luca Pacioli, Leonardo's mathematician friend
Luca Pacioli would play a major role in the life of Leonardo da Vinci, who used his mathematical knowledge both to depict polyhedra and to improve techniques of perspective drawing.
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History and CultureN°186Jan 22, 2019The artist as geometer
Artist, genius and gifted inventor, Leonardo da Vinci was a visionary. In a world only just emerging from the Middle Ages, and long before René Descartes, he understood the importance of the scientific method and the role of mathematics in understanding the world.
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History and CultureN°69Jan 21, 2019Differences in notation: are mathematicians and physicists irreconcilable?
The differences between physicists' and mathematicians' notation might seem like mere turf wars, and thus reconcilable with a little common sense. There are several reasons for these differences
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Math for everyoneN°185Nov 21, 2018Base 60 still dictates our schedules
The revolutionaries introduced the decimal system for weights and measures, and despite a few Anglo-Saxon holdouts, it prevailed across the globe. Yet bases 12 and 60 live on, notably in the measurement of angles and the passage of time…
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Math for everyoneN°185Nov 21, 2018Writing large numbers: not so simple!
Even with a positional decimal system, not everyone writes large numbers in the same way.
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History and CultureN°185Nov 21, 2018The 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…
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Math for everyoneN°68Oct 12, 2018Machine 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.
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Math for everyoneN°184Sep 27, 2018An excellent introduction to ancient mathematics
The July issue of Cahiers de Science & Vie highlights the history of mathematics and the various places where it developed.
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Math for everyoneN°184Sep 25, 2018Maths in the service of the taxman
Algorithms are used to cross-reference data from several sources and assess the plausibility of a tax return.
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Math for everyoneN°184Sep 24, 2018The "Trachtenberg method"
You may have heard of the "Trachtenberg method" in the recently released film Mary. It is an iterative method for performing impressive mental calculations with large numbers.
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Math for everyoneN°183Jul 17, 2018The withholding tax formula
From 2019, French taxpayers will have tax withheld at source. Until then, taxes paid in any given year were based on income from the previous year.
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Math for everyoneN°183Jul 17, 2018Income tax and convex functions
Tax due is a function of taxable income. What are its theoretical properties? Do the conclusions hold for the new property wealth tax? As it turns out, tax and derivatives make a fine pair!
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