Doing some laundry last night, I threw a duvet cover and nine pairs of socks into the dryer together. (Household hint: Don’t.) The duvet cover is a giant fabric pouch with a slit along one side; think of a queen-size pita pocket. Initially, all the socks were outside the pouch. When I pulled the load […]

The spirals and whorls seen in sunflowers, pine cones and various other plant structures have long held a special fascination for mathematicians and for biologists with a mathematical bent. After all, you can find Fibonacci numbers in those natural patterns—who could resist? But it’s not just Golden Ratio mysticism that accounts for this interest. More […]

The mathematicians—5,130 of them, at last report—are in New Orleans this weekend. The occasion is the annual joint meeting of the American Mathematical Society and the Mathematical Association of America (with participation from several other organizations). When the same group met here six years ago, the influx of 5,000 mathematicians added 1 percent to the […]