Guy Porthault
7 articles published in Tangente
Math for everyoneN°90May 06, 2024It's everywhere!
π turns up almost everywhere, sometimes even in the most fanciful fields. In mathematics, of course, we encounter it in geometry, analysis and number theory… As a result of this omnipresence, it appears throughout the other sciences too!
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Math for everyoneN°90May 06, 2024In search of the universe
Sometimes, a concept that is relatively simple to define leads us into a world we dare not imagine, where our common sense struggles to find its bearings. Such is the case with universal numbers, which remain today as elusive as they are fascinating.
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Math for everyoneN°89Feb 17, 2024The case of the camels
Seventeen camels: an inheritance that seems impossible to divide? This slightly paradoxical Eastern puzzle has a mathematical answer.
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History and CultureN°88Nov 21, 2023Solar system
Laplace set out his model for the creation of the Solar System in his Exposition du système du monde, several successive editions of which appeared between 1796 and 1824.
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Math for everyoneN°214Oct 16, 2023This is not a square
A square is a special kind of rhombus. Anyone can easily calculate the area of a square, but what about the area of a rhombus? Similarly, a square has both a circumcircle and an incircle. What happens in the case of a rhombus?
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Math for everyoneN°87Aug 23, 2023Dido's problem
For a given perimeter, the disk is the figure with the greatest area. This result, popularized by a trick attributed to Dido, the founder and first queen of Carthage, is the "isoperimetric theorem." It gave rise to many more general inequalities.
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History and CultureN°212Jun 27, 2023The irresistible rise of a mathematical prodigy
Given his life story and exceptional intellectual abilities, mathematician Terence Tao—born in Australia in 1975 and now a professor at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), in the United States—has been dubbed the "Mozart of mathematics" by many.
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