Math for everyone
Mathematical content accessible to everyone
Kurt Hensel, father of p-adic numbers | Tangente
Kurt Hensel is best known for his work on p-adic numbers.
Patrick Dehornoy: a tribute to the mathematician | Tangente
The specialist in ordered braids also made numerous videos popularizing mathematics.
Christian Mauduit, number theorist, has died | Tangente
The number theorist was an expert on representing integers in different bases.
42 as a sum of three cubes: the conjecture | Tangente
The last integer below 100 to withstand number theorists' onslaught has finally surrendered!
Reuleaux: a triangle that rolls – Curves | Tangente
A circular roller may always seem ideal for moving an object. Yet this is not so: a kind of equilateral triangle with rounded sides is actually better suited to certain everyday situations.
Rollers: when a triangle rolls | Tangente
The circle always seems to be the ideal shape for moving an object on rollers. Yet this is not so: a kind of equilateral triangle with rounded sides proves better suited to certain everyday situations.
Statistical software for archaeology | Tangente
Bayesian statistics has become an essential technique for constructing chronologies of archaeological events.
Jean-Claude Gardin: a free-thinking archaeologist | Tangente
Few works offer as critical an overview of the state of a discipline as Archéologie théorique, written by Jean-Claude Gardin and published by Hachette in 1979.
Jean-Paul Benzécri, father of correspondence analysis | Tangente
Jean-Paul Benzécri (born in 1932) began as a mathematician before turning to multivariate statistics.
Dendrochronology: dating by tree rings | Tangente
How was a harbour built in Roman times? When was this violin made? When was a mine's infrastructure built? Dendrochronologists seek to answer all these questions by precisely dating objects, structures or remains containing wood.
Beneath the paving stones… mathematics – Ancient mathematical instruments | Tangente
Counting, measuring and building: these were the mathematical aims of the Ancients. To achieve them, they created instruments that archaeologists have since unearthed.
Archaeological chronology: statistical methods | Tangente
To establish a chronology, archaeologists draw on a variety of statistical models, including correspondence analysis. Monte Carlo numerical methods are also brought into play. Mathematics is becoming indispensable to archaeology!
Bayesian statistics applied to dating
When we think of the tools archaeologists use to date objects or events, radiocarbon dating and dendrochronology immediately spring to mind. Mathematical techniques based on probability are also used.
Dyadic tree: integers and p-adic order | Tangente
Starting from a tree whose leaves extend indefinitely, we can construct either the positive integers or the dyadic integers. The trick? Put the 0s and 1s in the right places.
Settlement waves: A mathematical model | Tangente
Mathematical models developed by mathematician Albert Ammerman and geneticist Luca Cavalli-Sforza, combining human genetics and archaeology, have challenged prevailing accounts of population expansion and the myth of large-scale invasions.
A dive into a strange world of numbers
At the beginning of the 20th century, the German mathematician Kurt Hensel "invented" new numbers, written with infinitely many digits as in the decimal system, but based on a very different notion of proximity. This curious theory has proved highly fruitful in arithmetic!
10-adic numbers
Some mathematicians, tired of manipulating objects according to established procedures, begin to play with the rules themselves. What seems to be nothing more than pure intellectual pleasure often finds unexpected applications. Such is the case with 10-adic numbers...
Alexandre Grothendieck: mathematician of extremes | Tangente
Barely opened to the public, Alexandre Grothendieck's archives offer a glimpse into the career and extraordinary discoveries of one of mathematics' last great geniuses. An enormous task awaits specialists in algebraic geometry and historians of mathematics!
Philippe Charbonneau: mathematical sculptor | Tangente
The artist Philippe Charbonneau (1936–2019), well known to Tangente readers, died a few days after the Mathematical Culture and Games Fair, which he had attended.
Arik Levy's Rocks: sculpture and geometry | Tangente
"I was more interested in the possibilities for reflections that the work offered than in the work itself: each work offers views that would be impossible without it."