In an old post we went over the finite difference method, where we approximated the derivative of a function by sampling the function at multiple specific points, and then, as the name implies, taking the difference between these points. Finite differencing is both easy to understand and good enough for a lot of problems leading to…
Note: This post is adapted from a lecture I gave to my undergrads. It’s focused on presenting the basics of stability for dynamical systems. The big question this lecture is intended to answer is what will our system do if we perturb it a small amount? This is not a rigorous treatment and in some…
Note: This post is adapted from a lecture I gave to my undergrads. It’s focused on conveying the method and main idea behind the different formulations. This is not a rigorous treatment and in some locations, I have traded being technically correct for being clear. If you want a riggorous treatment of the material I…
Space Debris From dead satellites to flecks of paint, there are over 500,000 pieces of space debris currently being tracked. Space debris, and the problems they can cause is a hot topic with everything from a major Hollywood movie to TED talks being given about them. In this post I’m going to go over a less…
Welcome! Welcome to the 169th edition of the Carnival of Mathematics! This monthly roundup of some of the best and latest math blogs. As per tradition let’s begin with some trivia about the number 169. It’s a square! And if we reverse every number above, it still remains a square Blogs First up we…
Picture This Humans are a visual species, we look for patterns in life and we are great at finding them when they are visual. We can tell two people apart just by looking at their faces. Sometime’s we’re too good at seeing patterns and we see faces in a piece of burnt toast. If we’re…
