Math Digests December 2021

Adele’s ‘30’: A mathematician explores number patterns in album titles The Conversation, December 1, 2021 Pop superstar Adele has a habit of titling her albums in a peculiar way. Each album title is an integer that represents how old the singer was when she began writing the songs. David Patrick of the Art of Problem…

Math Digests October 2021

Just how fat are the fat bears? High Country News, September 29, 2021 It’s fat bear season. Every fall, bears in Alaska’s Katmai National Park and Preserve gorge themselves before hibernating. Hundreds of thousands of people tune in to livestreams and vote for their favorite fat bear. But how fat are they really? In the…

Math Digests September 2021

How Math Solved the Case of the Volcanic Bombs That Didn’t Explode The New York Times, September 11, 2021 You probably don’t want to get up close to an erupting volcano to study the magma “bombs” that it shoots out. Luckily, the power of mathematics allowed researchers to discover why some volcanic bombs fall to…