In 1988, Euler’s identity was elected most beautiful theorem of mathematics. It has been widely taught worldwide. But have you ever stopped to really sense the meaning of this incredible formula? This article does.

As explained by Derek Muller on Veritasium, the flow of water in trees involves complex physical phenomena including pressure, osmosis, negative pressure, capillarity and evapotranspiration. What seems simple will blow your mind!

The conic sections, that is, ellipses, parabolas and hyperbolas, are too often presented analytically. Yet, their amazing beauty is actually their spectacular geometry, as well as their omnipresence! This article presents plenty of illustrative descriptions of their uncountable applications!

Claude Shannon may be considered one of the most influential person of the 20th Century, as he laid out the foundation of the revolutionary information theory. Yet, unfortunately, he is virtually unknown to the public. This article is a tribute to him. And the best way I’ve found is to explain some of the brilliant ideas he had.

2048 is the Internet sensation of the year. This very addictive game has been downloaded hundred of millions of times. Interestingly, this game raises plenty of intriguing mathematical questions. This article unveils some of them!

The simplex method is one of the major algorithm of the 20th century, as it enables the resolution of linear problems with millions of variables. An intuitive approach is given. But that’s not all. We present an important variant called the dual simplex. Finally, we’ll explain its main default, that is, when facing degeneracy.

The second law of thermodynamics is my favorite law in physics, mainly because of the troubling puzzles it raises! Indeed, what your professors may have forgotten to tell you is that this law connects today’s world to its first instant, the Big Bang! Find out why!

Duality in linear programming yields plenty of amazing results that help understand and improve algorithms of resolution. This article shows the construction of the dual and its interpretation, as well as major results. In particular, matching of primal and dual bases will be dealt, before presenting the issue of degeneracy and its dual interpretation.

In 1832, Évariste Galois died. He was 20. The night before his death, he wrote a legendary letter to his friend, in which he claims to have found a mathematical treasure! Sadly, this treasure had long been buried in total indifference! It took nearly a century to rediscover it! Since then, Galois’ legacy has become some of the finest pure mathematics, which represents a hugely active field of research today with crucial applications to cryptography. Galois’ work is now known as Galois theory. In essence, it unveils the hidden symmetries of numbers!

Take a square sheet of paper. Can you glue opposite sides without ever folding the paper? This is a conundrum that many of the greatest modern mathematicians, like Gauss, Riemann, and Mandelbrot, couldn’t figure out. While John Nash did answer yes, he couldn’t say how. After 160 years of research, Vincent Borrelli and his collaborators have finally provided a revolutionary and breathtaking example of a bending of a square sheet of paper! And it is spectacularly beautiful!

This article discusses the validity of scientific results.

Notations do not matter to the essence of mathematics. But poor notations can be misleading. Notations based on exponents, radicals and logarithms definitely are. They are very distinct, even though they are supposed to describe very similar relations between numbers. The triangle of power is a recently proposed alternative. In short, I am convinced!

When you look at these pictures, what do you think about? Each of these pictures is a symbol of peace, and it is likely that this word will pop up in your mind by looking at one of these pictures – at least. That is true… But beside the word itself, I barely see what […]

A large chunk of applied mathematics has focused on optimizing something with respect to all relevant data. However, in practice, especially in the online world, the data is not available to us, and, yet, we’re still expected to make nearly optimal decisions. This problem is exemplified by the famous secretary problem, where a manager needs to decide to hire candidates right after interviews, even though he has not yet met all the candidates. In this article, we review this classic as well as many very recent developments.

It was when hearing the sounds of hammers that Pythagoras realized the ubiquity of numbers in mathematical harmony. He would go on laying down the mathematical foundations of music, based on octaves, perfect fifths and major thirds. This mathematics of music would then become the favourite playground of all musicians, from Beethoven to Gangnam Style.

No one believed him. Not even fellow mathematicians. They thought he was wrong. They thought he was crazy. Even he ended up doubting himself and went crazy. And yet, he had mathematically proved it all. Georg Cantor had figured out how to manipulate the infinite. Even more remarkable, he showed that there were actually several infinities; and some are bigger than others!

How to best sell a good? Should we auction it like in movies? Since the 1960s, economists have addressed this question mathematically and found surprising results. Most notably, in 1981, Nobel prize winner Roger Myerson proved that most auctions you could think of would win you just as much as any basic auction, but that, as well, you could do better using his approach. Since, today, billions of dollars are at play in online auctions, you can imagine how hot a topic it has now become!

You’ve probably learned early on that there are three primary colours. But why three? And why these three? Surprisingly, the answer lies in the beautiful mathematics of linear algebra and (high) dimension spaces!

This article follows the footsteps of the giants of physics that have moulded our current understanding of gravity. It is a series of brilliant inspirations, usually accompanied by deceiving misconceptions. After all, even today, gravity is still a slippery concept.

This article retraces the endless pursuit of the infinite that is at the basis of mathematical analysis. From the first approximations of pi to the shape of our limitless universe, from the essential usefulness of differential equations to the troubles with infinite sums, we present the great ideas of mathematical geniuses all along History.

P=NP is probably today’s most crucial open problem. Not only is it a very theoretical question in computer science and mathematics, but it also has major implications to real world. Its resolution could revolutionize the world. This article gives the definition and major results of P=NP.

In the last FIFA football world cup, many players complain about Manaus’ unbearable heat condition. Yet, the thermometer only went up to 30°C (86°F). Why is that? Well, as it turns out, how you feel is not really the outside temperature. This article unveils many of our deep misconceptions about heat.

When you look at these pictures, what do you think about? Each of these pictures is a symbol of peace, and it is likely that this word will pop up in your mind by looking at one of these pictures – at least. That is true… But beside the word itself, I barely see what […]

Integer programming is arguably the greatest achievement of applied mathematics. Half of the time, it’s what’s used to solve real-world problems!

The Global Hunger Index was first published in 2006 by the International Food Policy Research Institute and the NGO Welthungerhilfe. In 2007, Concern worldwide joined them. Since then, the Index reports every year the evolution of the hunger situation worldwide and focus on a given topic. How is it calculated? And what is hunger? How are we connected ? What can be done? To learn more, read the article below.

Do moving objects exhaust? Does the Moon accelerate? How strong is the gravity pull of the Moon on the Earth compared to that of the Earth on the Moon? While we’ve all learned Newton’s laws of motion, many of us would get several answers of these questions wrong. That’s not so surprising, as Newton’s laws are deeply counter-intuitive. By stressing their weirdness with Veritasium videos, this article dives into a deep understanding of classical mechanics.

Whenever you need to make a group of people interact, you are designing a mechanism. If you want to achieve a good interaction, you need to make sure your mechanism is well designed. In this article, I’ll show you main features of mechanisms through various examples. I’ll also talk about a great mathematical tool for mechanism design: the revelation principle.

Duality in linear programming yields plenty of amazing results that help understand and improve algorithms of resolution. This article shows the construction of the dual and its interpretation, as well as major results. In particular, matching of primal and dual bases will be dealt, before presenting the issue of degeneracy and its dual interpretation.

Introduced by the two renowned theoretical physicists Stephen Hawking and Leonard Mlodinov in their book The Grand Design in 2010, model-dependent realism is a new controversial understanding of the universe. Based on solid logical reasonings and recent developments in physics, this concept may well be an incredible breakthrough for philosophy and science, as well as metaphysics.

How to best sell a good? Should we auction it like in movies? Since the 1960s, economists have addressed this question mathematically and found surprising results. Most notably, in 1981, Nobel prize winner Roger Myerson proved that most auctions you could think of would win you just as much as any basic auction, but that, as well, you could do better using his approach. Since, today, billions of dollars are at play in online auctions, you can imagine how hot a topic it has now become!