Article

Kissing the frog: A mathematician's guide to mating

What's your strategy for love? Hold out for The One, or try and avoid the bad ones? How long should you wait before cutting your losses and settling down with whoever comes along next? John Billingham investigates and saves the national grid in the process.
Article

Mathematics and democracy: Approving a president

Much criticism has been levelled at the US voting system, and with this being election year, we're bound to hear more of it. In this article Steven J. Brams proposes an alternative voting system that could help make things more democratic.
Article

Digital art

Computer-generated art is on the rise, and with it comes a further blurring of the boundaries between maths and art. Lewis Dartnell looks at some stunning examples.
Article
numbers

The fabulous positional system

Chris Hollings reveals that our number system, much used but rarely praised, is in fact a work of genius and took millennia to evolve.

Article

Universal pictures

Peter Markowich is a mathematician who likes to take pictures. At first his two interests seemed completely separate to him, but then he realised that behind every picture there is a mathematical story to tell. Plus went to see him to find out more, and ended up with a pictorial introduction to partial differential equations.