New
Problems presented in the form of a short story or narrative account
Deviation of a curve from a tangent
Newton and Leibniz, the founders of differential and integral calculus, studied how a curve deviates from a tangent. To this end, they drew on the notion of curvature. The fundamental ideas of these two scholars gave rise to contemporary mathematical analysis.
Tangente's 35th anniversary | Tangente
Come celebrate a unique anniversary, the 35th anniversary of the only magazine of mathematical culture in the world sold at newsstands! There will be something for every taste, every age and every level. Here is a preview of what this eventful day has in store. The full program can be found at the end of this article.
Tangente Day 2023 at the Musée des Arts et Métiers | Tangente
Come celebrate the Trophées Tangente day, the world's only magazine of mathematical culture sold at newsstands! There will be something for every taste, every age and every level. Here is a preview of what this full day has in store.
How to help Tangente
IN A DIFFICULT TIME FOR MAGAZINES As you may know, publishers, printers and newsstands are going through a difficult period.
Polar vectors and axial vectors
In physics, forces and velocities are usually represented by vectors, mathematical objects with both magnitude and direction. Yet their behavior under a change of frame reveals two types of vectors, depending on the orientation of space: polar and axial.
A graphic novel on the foundational crisis | Tangente
Logicomix is a graphic novel centered on Bertrand Russell.
Galois as a character in fiction | Tangente
Several novels and fictionalized biographies have been written about Évariste Galois. Even if we consider only works published in French, the list is already substantial.
Revisiting the classics… | Tangente
Numerous shows with mathematical content are regularly created. But might there be mathematics in theatre itself? We can revisit the classics from a different perspective. Let's reread Molière, Marivaux and Ionesco.
Editorial
The "mathematical adventure" that began with the creation of Tangente in 1987 continues with the publication of issue 200. Its Publishing Director, Gilles Cohen, one of the magazine's founders, describes the exceptional content of this "Collector" issue.
Le Tellier, maths guy and Prix Goncourt winner | Tangente
With Hervé Le Tellier, who has just received the prestigious Prix Goncourt for his novel L’Anomalie, where logic and magic jostle for space, literature meets mathematics.
The thousand-and-first tale | Tangente
Mise en abyme is a classic literary device that masterfully evokes an iterative process. One example is Olivier Salon's 2009 text Les Gens de légende, reproduced by kind permission of Éditions du Castor Astral.
Musical iterations | Tangente
The first iterative process in music gave rise to the Pythagorean scale. Since then, recursive processes have been widely used in musical composition, from Johann Sebastian Bach to contemporary music. Their use is limited only by composers’ imaginations!
Hills and valleys
A real-life situation or a physics experiment generally depends on several parameters, not just one. We therefore need a deeper understanding of variation in this multidimensional setting. Partial derivatives provide just that.
Acoustics and computer music: Helmholtz | Tangente
Thanks to the work of Joseph Sauveur and later Hermann von Helmholtz on sound phenomena, we can analyze a sound in terms of its pitch, intensity and timbre. This is the analysis used in computer music, which is so popular with contemporary composers.
Astor Piazzolla and tango nuevo:
The freedom championed by the rise of contemporary music led Astor Piazzolla to break free from the stifling conventions of classical tango, both harmonically and rhythmically, and create a new form. This evolution in musical structure can be analyzed.
A century of mathematical music | Tangente
Since 1945, contemporary "art" music has become so diverse that any overview is now impossible. Yet technology and the introduction of some form of chance or randomness into composition remain ubiquitous.
Intellectual self-defense: zetetics courses | Tangente
Cortecs (Collective for Transdisciplinary Research on Critical Thinking & Science) is a teaching and research collective founded in 2010 to produce educational resources and scientific content, as well as courses and training in critical thinking, intellectual self-defense, zetetics and the scientific method.
South America: Fondation Cartier's ode to geometry | Tangente
Until 24 February 2019, Fondation Cartier is exploring the presence of geometry in art across South America, from Mexico to Tierra del Fuego, spanning pre-Columbian and contemporary art as well as Indigenous American cultures.
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?
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.