All posts by Nicholas Gerbis

Fearful symmetry: the beauty and power of tessellations

Irregular pentagon tessellation
Irregular pentagon tessellation. Image by R.A. Nonenmacher

We study mathematics for its beauty, its elegance and its capacity to codify the patterns woven into the fabric of the universe. Within its figures and formulas, the secular perceive order and the religious catch distant echoes of the language of creation. Mathematics achieves the sublime; sometimes, as with tessellations, it rises to art.

How tessellations work

Related Article:
Quiz: Tessellate this!

The M.A.D. world of Alfred Nobel

Alfred Nobel and several recipients of his namesake Peace Prize alike contributed to warfare and violence in numerous ways—a fact that some find ironic. Yet, Nobel lived at a time when scientists didn’t consider themselves responsible for how others used their inventions, and he held a view of destructive-weaponry-as-deterrent that presaged the Cold War philosophy of Mutually Assured Destruction, so perhaps there was a method to his M.A.D.-ness. As for the others I discuss in my article below, only history can judge.

Why is the Nobel Peace Prize kind of ironic?

Under pressure: Pascal’s many places in the sun

The Pascaline, an early digital calculator invented by Blaise Pascal
The Pascaline, an early digital calculator invented by Blaise Pascal

Blaise Pascal was the quintessential Renaissance man. After all, how many people have a computer language, a religious argument, a triangle, a mathematical theorem, a law of physics and a unit of pressure named after them? Here was a man who could not only pose a philosophical wager, but also invent the system for calculating its odds and a digital calculator with which to tally the results.

It is unusual for a prodigy to stray so widely and successfully from their first area of excellence, but, as Pascal put it, “The heart has its reasons that reason knows nothing of.”

What were the famous Blaise Pascal inventions?

Competitive swimsuits get a good ribbing from NASA

NASA spin-off technologies find their way into our lives in unexpected ways. Shock-absorbing memory squeezed its way into Tempur-Pedic mattresses, football helmet padding, shoe insoles, hospital beds, prosthetics, cars, amusement parks and modern art, while an invention designed to decrease airplane drag made a huge splash in the competitive swimming arena. Find out how as I answer the question…

Why did NASA invent the ribbed swimsuit?

Must-haves for the pampered astronaut

In 2007, astronaut Lisa Nowak thrust NASA “diapers” into the media spotlight when police in Orlando, Fla., charged her with the attempted kidnapping of U.S. Air Force Capt. Colleen Shipman. Although the space agency’s absorption garments were soon the butt of late night talk show monologues everywhere, they were also an elegant solution to an unpleasant engineering challenge—so elegant, in fact, that the story of the moonstruck astronaut inspired at least one company to ape NASA’s design.

How did NASA change diapers forever?