Siobhan Roberts
How to Teach Science with Sugar and Cream
High school teachers are bringing ice cream into the lab.
An “Infinitely Rich” Mathematician Turns 100
Richard Guy achieved his status as a mathematical titan by working away as a self-described amateur, though he pushes the boundaries of that definition.
How to Build a Search Engine for Mathematics
The surprising power of Neil Sloane’s Encyclopedia of Integer Sequences.
The Rube Goldberg Machine That Mastered Keynesian Economics
While researching my soon-to-be-released biography on John Horton Conway, an iconoclastic and very influential mathematician at Princeton, I organized a research trip to his native England. We visited with Conway’s elder sister, Joan, in Liverpool, and convened a reunion at his alma mater, Cambridge. We met there with a few of his “sum chums,” his co-authors […]
This Early Computer Was Based on a Urinal Flush Mechanism
John Horton Conway, a Fellow of the Royal Society who hails from Princeton via Cambridge, England, is notorious for many things—perhaps most for his promiscuous curiosity and his lifelong love affair with playing all manner of games. Nautilus Members enjoy an ad-free experience. Log in or Join now . He’s also celebrated for his Conway […]
In Mathematics, Mistakes Aren’t What They Used to Be
Computers can’t invent, but they’re changing the field anyway.