FRANCOIS LAVALLOU
64 articles published in Tangente
History and CultureN°169Mar 09, 2016Three brilliant mathematicians would have turned 100
1916 evokes the Battle of Verdun. That same year, Halmos, Shannon and Apéry were born. Though very different, they would share an unconventional personality and an original contribution.
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KnowledgeN°58Feb 23, 2016Medical imaging: picturing disease
The spectacular advances in medical imaging in recent years have come from combining mathematical ingenuity with computing power, drawing on theories devised long before they found practical applications.
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Math for everyoneN°168Jan 06, 2016Sports lottery and a fractal
Gambling, long condemned on religious or moral grounds, has flourished over the past century, along with sports betting, which has grown with the rise of online gaming. Statistical studies can help optimize the winnings of the homo ludens that modern humanity has become.
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History and CultureN°167Dec 29, 2015John von Neumann: means and excess
The Banach–Tarski paradox claims that, in theory, the pieces of a single loaf can be turned into two loaves. It fell to the protean genius John von Neumann to explain the underlying reason for this mathematical miracle. The notion of amenability that he introduced then spread widely.
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