ELISABETH BUSSER
226 articles published in Tangente
History and CultureN°179Nov 22, 2017Spiral at the Great Salt Lake
In 1970, American land-art pioneer Robert Smithson used bulldozers to create an enormous spiral of volcanic rock northeast of the Great Salt Lake, in Utah, in the western United States
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History and CultureN°179Nov 22, 2017Bull's-eye: the results
Tangente's 30th anniversary coincides with another milestone: the 20th anniversary of Affaire de Logique, the weekly column in Le Monde, which celebrated its 1,000th installment with a competition run weekly for 26 weeks that drew… 1,000 participants!
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Math for everyoneN°178Sep 27, 2017Area briefs
Discover different ways to calculate the areas of polygons
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Math for everyoneN°178Sep 27, 2017No doubt about it
We were used to highly faceted origami figures with clearly visible folds. Now a group of Austrian researchers has given these forms much smoother contours.
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History and CultureN°178Sep 27, 2017Geometry according to Malevitch
A hundred years ago, the artist Kasimir Severinovitch Malevitch (1878–1935) was appointed commissioner for the preservation of buildings and the arts
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Math for everyoneN°178Sep 27, 2017The Earth in a ping-pong ball
Nothing is mathematically impossible! Although, back in the 1950s, the Dutch mathematician Nicolaas Kuiper and the American John Nash had already proved the existence of a vast class of paradoxical mathematical objects (flat tori in 3D, shrunken spheres…), they lacked the tools to visualize them
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Math for everyoneN°178Sep 27, 2017The gravity equation
For once, an economist is talking about an "equation"—which makes it worth a closer look
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Math for everyoneN°178Sep 25, 2017And the angle makes history…
The so-called inscribed angle theorem, still part of every middle-school student's mathematical toolkit today, was already known to ancient geometers. It can sometimes have unusual applications.
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Math for everyoneN°64Sep 12, 2017Dissections: Greg Frederickson's trilogy
Greg Frederickson's trilogy is regarded as THE definitive reference on geometric dissections.
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Math for everyoneN°64Sep 12, 2017The secret of patterns in the Islamic world
The tilings and interlaced designs of medieval Islamic art command our admiration. But could a few simple geometric shapes lie behind this apparent complexity of line segments, interlacing, nested curves and polygons?
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Math for everyoneN°64Sep 12, 2017Proofs without words
Proofs without words are figures that visually illustrate algebraic relations, some of them fairly complex.
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Math for everyoneN°64Sep 11, 2017The geometry of scissors
Dissections are an inexhaustible source of research, discoveries and feats for amateur geometers and seasoned mathematicians alike. Born of practical concerns, they have become a treasure trove of mathematical recreations and brainteasers.
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