Mathematics Quote by Matt Parker

““I find this whole area of packing problems hugely exciting. Humans know very little about the mathematics of packing objects into spaces. It seems like a simple thing to do: arrange objects around each other to take up as little space as possible. But we just can't seem to get it right. The really fascinating thing, though, is that the subject of packing, mathematically speaking is tantalizingly open: it's in the same kind of disarray in which other mathematical areas historically found themselves before a revolutionary breakthrough propelled them up to the next level of understanding. You can sometimes feel that much of maths was all done and dusted way back in the distant past, but here's an area where the best maths is yet to come.””

Matt Parker

★ ★ ★ ★ ★ 2.5 out of 5 (4 ratings)

Little Space Mathematics Next level

More by Matt Parker

“Along with working on the Basel problem, Euler realized that adding an infinite sequence of reciprocal powers for all whole numbers will give you the same answer as multiplying together an infinite sequence of fractions which use only the prime numbers. So the zeta function can be written as two different equations, one of which relies only on the prime…

Matt Parker

“I was believing your kind were all dead!' Warvitch bellowed at the minotaur, over the sithkall's choking death growls. 'It will be a great…

Matt Parker

Image

“Despite their ubiquity on the number line, transcendentals are surprisingly hard to pin down. It took until 1873 to prove that e was transcendental, making it the first number we knew for definite was. The poster-child of maths, pi, didn't join the transcendental fold until 1882. Even today, we know that at least one of e + pi and e…

Matt Parker

“The proof in 1882 that pi is a transcendental number put a 2,000 year old problem to rest: for any given circle, can you draw a square of the same surface area using a compass and a straight edge? Since 1882, we know that no, you can't. To draw a square the area of a circle you need to be…

Matt Parker

“The compact disc may now be outdated technology, but a lot of music albums are still released on CD. A standard 700-megabyte CD is actually 703.125 megabytes (a rare case of the music industry giving something extra away for free), which is a total of 5,898,240,000 1s and 0s. By my calculations, the number of possible different CDs in base-10…

Matt Parker

“The zeta function is the sum of an infinite sequence of inverse powers.”

Matt Parker

Image

“At a very rough estimate, the domino computer we built took six hours to set up and run, which means it could do four calculations per day, if you had a team of domino-computer builders working around the clock. This is a terrible rate of one calculation every 21,600 seconds, equating to a processor speed of 46.3 microhertz. Which makes…

Matt Parker

“In our current number system, if you multiply 111,111,111 by itself, you get the rather pleasing 12,345,678,987,654,321 (all the digits count up from 1…

Matt Parker

Image

“Much as it took Lucas to revolutionize the search for Mersennes primes and Lord Kelvin to introduce new ways to look for space-filling-shapes, I think we're still waiting for the key mathematical techniques needed to fully understand knots. I suspect a new generation of mathematicians will have to go to university and become knot theorists on order to give us…

Matt Parker

“For DNA to reproduce, it needs to unzip itself down the middle, and the topology of the dna chain dictates which knots are formed…

Matt Parker

Image

“To this day, the Clay Mathematics Institute's bounty of $1 million for anyone who can prove that all the non-trivial zeroes of the zeta…

Matt Parker

Image

“The Riemann Hypothesis states that all the non-trivial zeroes of the zeta function are on this line. If we can prove the Riemann Hypothesis is true, then we'll also have proved the method for counting the prime numbers. In some weird twisted act of mathematical logic, at a fundamental level the alignment of these zeroes stems from the same logic…

Matt Parker

Explore all 39 Matt Parker quotes

More Mathematics quotes

For the execution of the voyage to the Indies, I did not make use of intelligence, mathematics or maps.

Christopher Columbus

Image

Rule number something or other -- never tell anybody anything unless you're going to get something better in return.

Sara Paretsky

Image

There's no reason for men to be better at maths than women - it's just about our perception.

Rachel Riley

Image

For a physicist mathematics is not just a tool by means of which phenomena can be calculated, it is the main source of concepts…

Freeman Dyson

Image

Geometry, which should only obey Physics, when united with it sometimes commands it. If it happens that the question which we wish to examine is too complicated for all the elements to be able to enter into the analytical comparison we wish to make, we separate the more inconvenient [elements], we substitute others for them, less troublesome but also less…

Jean le Rond d'Alembert

In school math and science were my favorite subjects, but I probably in my true self I'm more of a people person. At the…

Emily Deschanel

Image

“How in the world did I ever find you?” Mackenzie Winters “Math class.” Brandon Knight”

Bella Jeanisse

Image

“One is the notion that knowledge is worth acquiring, all knowledge, and that a solid grounding in mathematics provides one with the essential language of many of the most important forms of knowledge. The third theme is that, while it is desirable to live peaceably, there are things worth fighting for and values worth dying for—and that it is far…

William H. Patterson Jr

“When one day Lagrange took out of his pocket a paper which he read at the Académe, and which contained a demonstration of the famous Postulatum of Euclid , relative to the theory of parallels. This demonstration rested on an obvious paralogism, which appeared as such to everybody; and probably Lagrange also recognised it such during his lecture. For, when…

Jean-Baptiste Biot

“We are not told, or not told early enough so that it sinks in, that mathematics is a language, and that we can learn it like any other, including our own. We have to learn our own language twice, first when we learn to speak it, second when we learn to read it. Fortunately, mathematics has to be learned only…

Mortimer J. Adler