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| Math
monster |
| A forthcoming
book chronicles a wizards? chase for a million-dollar
prize. Pathik Guha reports |
| It’s
a big game that remains at large — a Loch Ness monster.”
That’s how Dr Daniel N. Rockmore, professor of mathematics
and computer science at the Dartmouth College, Hanover,
New Hampshire, describes the biggest unsolved problem
in his own subject. He’s right, for, like the mythical
beast rearing its head in a Scottish lake, the mathematical
riddle is daring the wits of experts. No one has been
able to crack it for nearly 150 years. And the game is
at large despite a reward of $1,000,000 on its head for
the last five years. ... | Read.. |
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| Prier
of secrets |
| While
most physicists were cracking huge computer codes
and reams of cryptic clues, physicist Hans Albrecht
Bethe pried open some of the deepest secrets of
nature with only a slide rule, a pencil and a stack
of blank paper. ... | Read.. |
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| When
poison saves lives |
| In
the early 1990s, the drug miltefosine was launched
in Germany for the treatment of breast cancer. To
be very specific, it was designed to arrest the
migration of cancer cells from the affected organ
to other parts of the body. Now it is awaiting ... |
Read.. |
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Leonhard Eular (top oval),
Bernhard Riemann (middle) and Prof. Daniel N. Rockmore
(above)
(Picture courtesy: Joseph Mehling) |
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| Almost disappearing |
It has often been said of personal computers that
one day they will be like appliances. And while
PCs have taken on some aspects of household machines,
they are not necessarily the ones that futurists
forecast. Much like, say, washers and dryers, mos
... | Read..
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| QED: Truly esoteric ideas
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Abstraction has been a necessary evil of human civilisation since
the days of cave paintings. The new wave of French cinema has long
died out, but not before gems like Pierrot le Fou had taken the memorable
auspices of movie aficionados; the New York ... | Read.. |
| Recommended:
Six men who shook the world
|
A REASON FOR
EVERYTHING
Marek Kohn
Faber & Faber; £ 20 ... | Read.. |
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For decades I?ve been pleading with my readers to adopt healthy habits to prevent heart disease and possibly some cancers. Now there?s another organ, the brain, that these measures may protect. ... | 
