https://phys.org/science-news/mathematics en-us The latest news on mathematics, math, math science, mathematical science and math technology. Direct reciprocity facilitates cooperation in repeated social interactions. Traditional models suggest that individuals learn to adopt conditionally cooperative strategies if they have multiple encounters with their partner. However, most existing models make rather strong assumptions about how individuals decide to keep or change their strategies. https://phys.org/news/2024-06-cooperation-evolve-limited-payoff-memory.html Mathematics Social Sciences Wed, 19 Jun 2024 10:33:15 EDT news638011991 Ever wondered how your friends shape your music taste? In a recent study, researchers at the Complexity Science Hub (CSH) demonstrated that social networks are a powerful predictor of a song's future popularity. By analyzing friendships and listening habits, they've boosted machine learning prediction precision by 50%. https://phys.org/news/2024-06-power-social-songs.html Mathematics Social Sciences Tue, 11 Jun 2024 10:26:03 EDT news637320362 A research article published June 10 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences highlights the importance of careful application of high-tech forensic science to avoid wrongful convictions. https://phys.org/news/2024-06-wire-forensic-unreliable-court.html Mathematics Political science Mon, 10 Jun 2024 15:00:01 EDT news637227541 How can disaster response teams benefit from understanding how people most efficiently pick strawberries together, or how they choose the perfect ice cream shop with friends? https://phys.org/news/2024-06-good-decisions-videogame.html Mathematics Social Sciences Tue, 04 Jun 2024 12:19:34 EDT news636722369 In times of crisis, effective humanitarian aid depends largely on the fast and efficient allocation of resources and personnel. Accurate data about the locations and movements of affected people in these situations is essential for this. https://phys.org/news/2024-06-scientists-aim-humanitarian-displaced-populations.html Mathematics Social Sciences Mon, 03 Jun 2024 10:23:47 EDT news636629022 What is the best way for a group of individuals to cooperate? This is a longstanding question with roots in game theory, a branch of science which uses mathematical models of how individuals should best strategize for the optimal result. https://phys.org/news/2024-05-result-group-optimal-path-cooperation.html Mathematics Social Sciences Thu, 30 May 2024 10:10:01 EDT news636281737 New mathematical tools revealing how quickly cell proteins break down are poised to uncover deeper insights into how we age, according to a recently published paper co-authored by a Mississippi State researcher and his colleagues from Harvard Medical School and the University of Cambridge. https://phys.org/news/2024-05-math-discovery-method-cell-aging.html Mathematics Tue, 21 May 2024 13:32:54 EDT news635517171 Gossip often has a negative connotation, but imagine you are part of a group deciding on a job candidate to hire or a local political candidate to back. Candidates who get a good reputation by helping others may be more likely to receive help in the form of a job offer or endorsement, a feedback loop known as indirect reciprocity. Gossip can facilitate cooperation. https://phys.org/news/2024-05-mechanistic-gossip-foster-social-cooperation.html Mathematics Social Sciences Wed, 15 May 2024 12:59:00 EDT news634996737 Will a certain tritium atom decay by a certain time? According to our current science, this question concerning physical phenomena should be answered by sampling from a probability distribution, a process not unlike spinning a roulette wheel or rolling dice. However, a paper in Foundations of Physics suggests that the same could be true of a question concerning mathematical phenomena, even one as prosaic as "what is 2+2?" https://phys.org/news/2024-05-random-science-math-probabilistic-framework.html Mathematics Thu, 09 May 2024 09:42:02 EDT news634466521 A small team of political scientists, statisticians and data scientists from Harvard University, New York University, and Yale University, has found that by switching to a new method to better protect privacy, the U.S. Census Department has introduced factors that reduce accuracy in some cases. https://phys.org/news/2024-05-method-privacy-census-accuracy.html Mathematics Political science Mon, 06 May 2024 10:10:02 EDT news634207338 Most people have heard the famous phrase "the enemy of my enemy is my friend." Now, Northwestern University researchers have used statistical physics to confirm the theory that underlies this famous axiom. The study, "Proper network randomization is key to assessing social balance," is published in the journal Science Advances. https://phys.org/news/2024-05-statistical-physics-corroborate-1940s-social.html Mathematics Social Sciences Fri, 03 May 2024 14:00:01 EDT news633944237 What do the flow of cars on a highway and the movement of bacteria towards a food source have in common? In both cases, annoying traffic jams can form. Especially for cars, we might want to understand how to avoid them, but perhaps we've never thought of turning to statistical physics. https://phys.org/news/2024-04-vehicles-reactions-reckless-merging-math.html Mathematics Tue, 30 Apr 2024 00:00:01 EDT news633626701 Imagine a small village where every action someone takes, good or bad, is quietly followed by ever-attentive, nosy neighbors. An individual's reputation is built through these actions and observations, which determines how others will treat them. They help a neighbor and are likely to receive help from others in return; they turn their back on a neighbor and find themselves isolated. But what happens when people make mistakes, when good deeds go unnoticed, or errors lead to unjust blame? https://phys.org/news/2024-04-theoretical-biologists-modes-social-truths.html Mathematics Social Sciences Mon, 29 Apr 2024 14:58:39 EDT news633621516 Whether you're trying to predict a climate catastrophe or mental health crisis, mathematics tells us to look for fluctuations. https://phys.org/news/2024-04-algorithm-noisy.html Mathematics Fri, 26 Apr 2024 13:13:04 EDT news633355982 Both arithmetic aficionados and the mathematically challenged will be equally captivated by new research that upends hundreds of years of popular belief about prime numbers. https://phys.org/news/2024-04-breakthrough-prime-theory-primes.html Mathematics Wed, 03 Apr 2024 11:09:07 EDT news631361345 Chinese ice-ray lattice, or "binglie" as it is called in Chinese, is an intricate pattern that looks like cracked ice and is a common decorative element used in traditional Chinese window designs. https://phys.org/news/2024-03-ice-ray-patterns-rediscovery-future.html Mathematics Wed, 20 Mar 2024 10:55:06 EDT news630150901 For Michel Talagrand, who won the Abel mathematics prize on Wednesday, math provided a fun life free from all constraints—and an escape from the eye problems he suffered as a child. https://phys.org/news/2024-03-fun-winner-math-prize.html Mathematics Wed, 20 Mar 2024 10:42:51 EDT news630150165 Tiny particles like pollen grains move constantly, pushed and pulled by environmental forces. To study this motion, physicists use a "random walk" model—a system in which every step is determined by a random process. Random walks are useful for studying everything from tiny physics to diffusion to financial markets. https://phys.org/news/2024-03-paper-mathematical-approach-random-walker.html Mathematics Wed, 13 Mar 2024 09:46:02 EDT news629541961 Neural networks have been powering breakthroughs in artificial intelligence, including the large language models that are now being used in a wide range of applications, from finance, to human resources to health care. But these networks remain a black box whose inner workings engineers and scientists struggle to understand. https://phys.org/news/2024-03-neural-networks-mathematical-formula-relevant.html Mathematics Tue, 12 Mar 2024 07:23:58 EDT news629447034 Is it possible to deduce the shape of a drum from the sounds it makes? This is the kind of question that Iosif Polterovich, a professor in the Department of Mathematics and Statistics at Université de Montréal, likes to ask. Polterovich uses spectral geometry, a branch of mathematics, to understand physical phenomena involving wave propagation. https://phys.org/news/2024-03-mathematicians-plya-conjecture-eigenvalues-disk.html Mathematics Fri, 01 Mar 2024 10:54:19 EST news628512858 The tone and tuning of musical instruments has the power to manipulate our appreciation of harmony, new research shows. The findings challenge centuries of Western music theory and encourage greater experimentation with instruments from different cultures. https://phys.org/news/2024-02-pythagoras-wrong-universal-musical-harmonies.html Mathematics Social Sciences Tue, 27 Feb 2024 11:31:20 EST news628255860 Human coexistence depends on cooperation. Individuals have different motivations and reasons to collaborate, resulting in social dilemmas, such as the well-known prisoner's dilemma. Scientists from the Chatterjee group at the Institute of Science and Technology Austria (ISTA) now present a new mathematical principle that helps to understand the cooperation of individuals with different characteristics. The results, published in PNAS, can be applied to economics or behavioral studies. https://phys.org/news/2024-02-math-social-dilemmas.html Mathematics Social Sciences Mon, 26 Feb 2024 15:00:02 EST news628159474 A mathematical historian at Trinity Wester University in Canada, has found use of a decimal point by a Venetian merchant 150 years before its first known use by German mathematician Christopher Clavius. In his paper published in the journal Historia Mathematica, Glen Van Brummelen describes how he found the evidence of decimal use in a volume called "Tabulae," and its significance to the history of mathematics. https://phys.org/news/2024-02-decimal-centuries-older-historians-thought.html Mathematics Tue, 20 Feb 2024 11:10:01 EST news627649647 In Lewis Carroll's Through the Looking-Glass, the Red Queen tells Alice, "It takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place." The race between innovation and obsolescence is like this. https://phys.org/news/2024-02-mathematical-obsolescence-insights-diverse-fields.html Mathematics Mon, 05 Feb 2024 10:57:23 EST news626353040 The springtime emergence of vast swarms of cicadas can be explained by a mathematical model of collective decision-making that has similarities to models describing stock market crashes. https://phys.org/news/2024-02-swarming-cicadas-stock-traders-wisdom.html Mathematics Thu, 01 Feb 2024 11:11:44 EST news626008299 Have you ever wondered about the best way to pack a finite number of identical spheres into a shape-shifting flexible container, like a convex hull? https://phys.org/news/2024-01-simulations-tackle-finite-sphere-problem.html Mathematics Wed, 31 Jan 2024 11:09:54 EST news625921792 Statisticians from the National University of Singapore (NUS) have introduced a new technique that accurately describes high-dimensional data using lower-dimensional smooth structures. This innovation marks a significant step forward in addressing the challenges of complex nonlinear dimension reduction. https://phys.org/news/2024-01-manifold-approach-high-dimensional-reduction.html Mathematics Mon, 29 Jan 2024 09:52:03 EST news625744321 In fields such as physics and engineering, partial differential equations (PDEs) are used to model complex physical processes to generate insight into how some of the most complicated physical and natural systems in the world function. https://phys.org/news/2024-01-technique-efficiently-partial-differential-equations.html Mathematics Tue, 09 Jan 2024 12:50:24 EST news624027021 The simple activity of walking through a room jumpstarts the neurons in the human brain. An explosion of electrochemical events or "neuronal spikes" appears at various times during the action. These spikes in activity, otherwise known as action potentials, are electrical impulses that occur when neurons communicate with one another. https://phys.org/news/2023-12-math-approach-insight-memory-formation.html Mathematics Tue, 05 Dec 2023 11:17:58 EST news620997475 Economics and physics are distinct fields of study, yet some researchers have been bridging the two together to tackle complex economics problems in innovative ways. This resulted in the establishment of an interdisciplinary research field, known as econophysics, which specializes in solving problems rooted in economics using physics theories and experimental methods. https://phys.org/news/2023-11-validation-lillo-mike-farmer-large.html Mathematics Economics & Business Thu, 30 Nov 2023 09:56:53 EST news620560608