“Mathematics is the surest way to immortality. If you make a big discovery in mathematics, you will be remembered.”

Hungarian-born Paul Erdős (1913–1996) was a legendary mathematician of the 20th century. He is famous for having published more research papers than anyone since Euler. Both of his parents used to teach mathematics.

At 16, his father made him familiar with two of his lifetime favorite subjects; set theory and infinite series. Erdős always remembered his parents with great affection and love. At 17, he started university in Budapest then he left for the US during the pre-war years. At 20…

The Starlink satellite constellation is an ambitious project initiated by SpaceX’s CEO Elon Musk to provide high-speed internet anywhere around the globe.

In 2015, Musk announced the startup of the network of communication satellites with a statement that “there is a significant unmet demand for low-cost global broadband capabilities.”

They have launched nearly 600 satellites in low-Earth-orbit (LEO) so far and are planning to extend it to the interconnected network of about 12,000 small satellites. The network of satellites is connected by space lasers. The main concern they have is global connectivity through the world’s largest Low-Earth-orbit broadband constellation.

The…

Penrose tiles

The Penrose tiles or tesselations form when you indefinitely place the shapes over and over again in different orientations to totally enfold a surface, but the pattern never repeats. It is called non-periodic tiling because it lacks translational symmetry.

Sir Roger Penrose an English mathematical physicist who is well known for his work in cosmology and the general theory of relativity discovered three different types of non-periodic tilings in the 1970s. He was not the leading one in discovering this special pattern of tiles, but certainly, he was the most popular one as the pattern is named after him.

For…

At a certain point in our lives, we all wish to go back to the time and change things or bad decisions, as well as, rush to the future to see what’s there. But unfortunately, it has not been able to happen yet.

The predestination paradox is the most mind-boggling among other paradoxes associated with the concept of time travel such as the grandfather paradox and bootstrap paradox. It is also known as the causal loop paradox.

To understand this paradox we have to be clear about the concept of time and causality.

1. According to Einstein’s special relativity theory, time…

“Abel was done to death by poverty, Galois by stupidity. In all the history of science, there is no completer example of the triumph of crass stupidity over untamable genius than is afforded by the all too brief life of Évariste Galois. The record of his misfortunes might well stand as a sinister monument to all self-assured pedagogues, unscrupulous politicians, and conceited academicians. Galois was no “ineffectual angel,” but even his magnificent powers were shattered before the massed stupidity aligned against him, and he beat his life out fighting one unconquerable fool after another.”

— Men of mathematics by E…

Historical context

The origin of the four-color map theorem dates back to 1852. Its emergence is quite captivating. Once a person named Francis Guthrie was trying to color the Britain countries on the map, he then suspected that he is able to do that by using only four colors. Little did he knew that his thinking will be going to pose a genuine problem that will remain unanswered for such a long time.

He had a discussion about that problem with his brother Frederick who was a student of the famous mathematician Augustus De Morgan at University College London. …

Impossible shapes are the ones that form in an inconsistent way to create a spooky optical illusion. That deceives our brain on a very first impression by creating a false reality. A few of them are discussed in this article.

Penrose Triangle

The Penrose triangle or the impossible triangle (Penrose tribar) was first designed by a Swedish artist Oscar Reutersvärd in 1934. He was known as the “father of the impossible figures”. He created that picture at the age of 18 while drawing randomly in his Latin class.

The triangle gained more widespread attention in the 1950s when a psychiatrist Lionel Penrose…

The emergence of the General Theory of Relativity is a subject that has been written and gained extensive attention with the well-defined focus of Albert Einstein’s role in it. This article will enlighten the part played by Marcel Grossmann in generalizing gravity and a little bit about other people who served as building blocks in the completion of the theory.

Firstly I will review the biography of Marcel Grossmann (1878–1936) and his intellectual contributions to the field of geometry. Later I will discuss the collaboration which resulted in Einstein-Grossmann's theory in 1913. …