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Careers with maths
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Barry Phipps tells Plus how he bridges the gap between the arts and sciences as an exhibition curator.

A favourite from the archive...
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Get the maths of this famous fractal

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June 2008
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mathematics of growth

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'Of the myriad strategems I employ to avoid useful work, the one I most enjoy is to envision how scientists of earlier eras would have made use of modern computers.' John L. Casti tells us how today's mathematicians are using computers to carry on the work of turn-of-the-century polymath d'Arcy Wentworth Thompson, who showed how mathematical functions could be applied to the shape of one organism to continuously transform it into other, physically similar organisms.

Tags: mathematics of growth : catastrophe theory : computer recognition : invariant point


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Mathematicians explain how plants climb

Tags: mechanics : mathematics of growth : differential equation