Math for everyone
Mathematical content accessible to everyone
2019: a random year | Tangente
Randomness is the theme of the 2019 mathematical calendar published by Presses universitaires de Grenoble and edited by Ana Rechtman Bulajich.
Having fun with the number 60 | Tangente
Although 60 is no longer the retirement age, there are still plenty of opportunities to play with the number 60.
Speaking numbers
Do you speak numbers? Writing numbers is perfectly automatic, but reading them raises several questions.
Base 60 still dictates our schedules | Tangente
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…
Counting without counting | Tangente
Everyday language still bears traces of certain ancient counting practices.
Two numeral systems you were spared | Tangente
Numeral systems are a matter of conventions dictated by history and efficiency. But what if...
Writing large numbers: not so simple! | Tangente
Even with a positional decimal system, not everyone writes large numbers in the same way.
Pre-Columbian numeral systems | Tangente
In which we discover that South American civilizations did not wait for Christopher Columbus before adopting numeral systems
Telling the story of numbers
Describing quantities in terms other than "few" or "many," comparing them, manipulating them without touching or seeing them… All this depends on numbers. Numbers have preoccupied humankind since prehistoric times. So what is the story of the invention that changed the face of the world: numeral systems?
The Klein bottle
The bottle named after Felix Klein is a classic of topology, yet its mathematical properties are still sometimes poorly understood. Let's delve beneath the surface to uncover its connection with the Möbius strip.
Coloring the plane: when geometry gets involved | Tangente
For plane coloring, we already knew that four colors were enough to color any map so that no two neighboring countries ever had the same color.
Knot theory according to Jean-Michel Othoniel | Tangente
Jean-Michel Othoniel is an original sculptor in more ways than one. His exhibition "Géométries amoureuses" was held in Sète (Hérault) in 2017, and his current exhibition "Face à l'obscurité" has just closed at the MAMC in Saint-Etienne (Loire).
This is not a Möbius strip! | Tangente
Think you know everything about the Möbius strip, topology's quintessential object? Think again! Paper models of it have thickness, which undermines some of their properties. Let's explore these subtleties.
The 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…
Untangling the mysteries of rubbery deformations
The metric properties of modelling-clay objects change when they are deformed. Other properties, known as topological properties, remain unchanged. Surprisingly, algebra enters the picture. This naturally leads us to consider knots and the constituent molecules of DNA.
Breakthrough Prize awarded to Vincent Lafforgue | Tangente
French mathematician Vincent Lafforgue, brother of 2002 Fields Medalist Laurent Lafforgue, has won the 2019 Breakthrough Prize in Mathematics, worth $3 million, "for his fundamental and elegant contributions to the Langlands program in the function field case."
180 seconds of popular science | Tangente
Three minutes flat is not long to sum up a thesis—especially when the presentation has to be accessible to a wide audience. That is the daunting challenge faced each year by a number of French-speaking doctoral students in "My Thesis in 180 Seconds," modelled on the English-language Three Minute Thesis competition.
The SCM–FFJM competition | Tangente
Each year, the SCM, in partnership with the FFJM, organizes a research competition based on a mathematical problem drawn from "real life." This time, participants have until April 30 to study traffic congestion in Houston.
Tangente awards 2018
Ever since Napoleon's coronation in 1804, 2 December has been a day for coronations. Here are the many winners of Club Tangente's 2018 competitions and prizes, honoured at the Musée des Arts et Métiers.
The blablatech craze | Tangente
Discover the labels for the new jobs in artificial intelligence.