A walk in the land of numbers
It is always a pleasure, in Tangente, to rediscover numbers, faithful companions of the mathematician's journey. We find them everywhere indeed: they are at the base of our numbering systems, we wonder about the distribution of prime numbers, we marvel at their arithmetic properties, as with the Chinese remainder theorem...
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Chinese remainder theorem: history and applications | Tangente
The Chinese remainder theorem owes its name to ancient Chinese mathematicians’ interest in the arrangement problems it describes. Originally a source of puzzles, it has since found more practical applications, particularly in cryptography.
Applying the Chinese remainder theorem to RSA cryptography
The Chinese remainder theorem finds, among other things, applications in cryptography
Why not base 12? The advantages of the duodecimal system
If you talk to people about the history of arithmetic, whatever your specific subject, you can expect someone to ask this question at the end: why is our numeral system base 10 when base 12 would be so much more practical?
Paul Erdős and the probabilistic view of arithmetic
With the development of probability theory in the early 20th century, a new field of inquiry opened up in arithmetic: the statistical study of integers. Paul Erdős was among the first mathematicians to grasp the significance of this new approach.
The mysteries of the Ishango bone | Tangente Magazine
The mysterious Ishango bone has not yet given up all its secrets