Maths and the America’s Cup
Dan Bernasconi, Head of Design at Emirates Team New Zealand, explains the significant role mathematics plays in sailing, boat design, and the America’s Cup. Click on the image for more info:
Dan Bernasconi, Head of Design at Emirates Team New Zealand, explains the significant role mathematics plays in sailing, boat design, and the America’s Cup. Click on the image for more info:
Its inventor – aeronautical engineer Robert T. Jones (shown here with the Proof of Concept AD-1) from NASA’s Ames Research Center in California – was a pioneer who wanted to challenge conventions. “One of the unspoken assumptions in aircraft design is that of bilateral or mirror symmetry,” he wrote in a 1972 scientific study on […]
In 1851, a team from New York Yacht Club won a race around the Isle of Wight off the south coast of England. They beat 15 British boats to take the Hundred Guinea Cup, a silver trophy valued at £100. Of course, the British were ‘not amused’! Subsequently named the America’s Cup after the victorious […]
The Boeing 737 Max Part II – Software design without safety: “It is astounding that no one who wrote the MCAS software for the 737 Max seems even to have raised the possibility of using multiple inputs, including the opposite angle-of-attack sensor, in the computer’s determination of an impending stall. As a lifetime member of […]
In Mathematics there are numbers that are like pure gold – they glow with special properties. Like the magic ring in Lord of the Rings, they release powers of the imagination and can be used to inflict their magic on those unsuspecting students who look at them too closely. Yes, we are talking about The […]
A very sad moment when we heard yesterday that Notre Dame cathedral was ablaze in Paris. H3 visited this amazing Gothic cathedral just a few years ago and the soaring roof detail seemed inexplicable – its heavy brick pattern seeming unsupported. Yes, this fire-proof lining may have saved the cathedral from absolute ruin. Notre Dame […]
The link between Mathematics and architecture goes back to ancient times. Pyramids and temples were some of the earliest examples of mathematical principles at work. Today, Mathematics continues to feature prominently in building design. Thanks to modern technology, architects can explore a variety of exciting design options based on complex mathematical formulae, allowing them to […]
The amazingly beautiful and accessible Duomo in Milan, built over some 4 centuries, was such a compelling Gothic building that it attracted many talented Mathematicians and Scientists – who wanted to study and share in the beauty and power of the Duomo. As the cathedral’s architecture became the powerhouse of intellectual culture in northern Italy, […]
Mathematics is behind some wonderful new bridge designs (click image above for samples, including the use of plastic bottles), but even ancient bridges were based on arcs and circles, etc. such as this one in England
Mathematically speaking, there’s just a finite number of distinct geometric patterns. All Escher paintings, wallpapers, tile designs and indeed all two-dimensional, and repeating arrangements of shapes can be identified as belonging to one or another of the so-called “wallpaper groups.” And how many wallpaper groups are there? Exactly 17. The classification of the wallpaper groups […]