Phys.org Mathmatics

• Quantifying social avoidance: Game-based choices reflect real-world relationship patterns and network size

  The relationships between different people can change over time, as the result of their life choices, internal or external experiences and various other factors. Some people develop a greater tendency to avoid others in their lives, including friends, colleagues, family members and acquaintances.

• Beyond words: Hidden musical grammar of natural speech revealed in study

  The AI revolution, which has begun to transform our lives over the past three years, is built on a fundamental linguistic principle that lies at the base of large language models such as ChatGPT. Words in a natural language are not strung together in random patterns; rather, there is a statistical structure that allows the model to guess the next word based on what came before. Yet these models overlook a crucial dimension of human communication: content that is not conveyed by words.

• Addressing working memory can help students with math difficulty improve word problem-solving skills

  A new study from the University of Kansas explores the role of working memory in word problem-solving for students with and without math difficulties. Researchers found that using interventions to improve working memory can potentially benefit students who struggle with math.

• Emotions and levels of threat affect communities' resilience during extreme events

  Tightly connected communities tend to be more resilient when facing extreme events such as earthquakes, hurricanes, floods or wildfires, says Jose Ramirez-Marquez, who develops metrics to analyze, quantify and ultimately improve performance of urban systems.

• Mathematicians solve centuries-old mystery of how 'broken' tulips get their stripes

  Researchers have found an answer to a centuries-old floral mystery, using a mathematical model to explain how striped tulips get their distinctive pattern.

• Parents' fear of math linked to lower achievement in children

  Mathematics anxiety is a feeling of tension and fear when dealing with numbers or performing calculations. It is a common form of academic anxiety: according to an OECD report, around 40% of students feel nervous, helpless or anxious in everyday situations involving mathematics, such as solving problems or doing math homework.

• Mathematicians uncover the hidden patterns behind a $3.5 billion cryptocurrency collapse

  In a new study published in ACM Transactions on the Web, researchers from Queen Mary University of London have unveiled the intricate mechanisms behind one of the most dramatic collapses in the cryptocurrency world: the downfall of the TerraUSD stablecoin and its associated currency, LUNA. Using advanced mathematical techniques and cutting-edge software, the team has identified suspicious trading patterns that suggest a coordinated attack on the ecosystem, leading to a catastrophic loss of $3.5 billion in value virtually overnight.

• Quantum statistical approach quiets big, noisy data

  Big data has gotten too big. Now, a research team with statisticians from Cornell has developed a data representation method inspired by quantum mechanics that handles large data sets more efficiently than traditional methods by simplifying them and filtering out noise.

• Statisticians estimate the number of unattributed paintings of Amedeo Modigliani

  In a novel use of statistics, researchers estimate the number of unattributed paintings, known as "sleepers," by the famous 20th-century Italian artist Amedeo Modigliani to be at between 20 and 120.

• Basketball analytics investment is key to NBA wins and other successes, says study

  If you filled out a March Madness bracket this month, you probably faced the same question with each college match-up: What gives one team an edge over another? Is it a team's record through the regular season? Or the chemistry among its players? Maybe it's the experience of its coaching staff or the buzz around a top scorer.

• Megastudy finds a simple way to boost math progress

  American students have been falling behind in math for decades—with test scores that consistently rank in the bottom 25% globally compared to students in other developed countries—and the COVID-19 pandemic made the situation worse.

• The secret behind pedestrian crossings—and why some spiral into chaos

  Pedestrian crossings generally showcase the best in pedestrian behavior, with people naturally forming orderly lanes as they cross the road, smoothly passing those coming from the opposite direction without any bumps or scrapes. Sometimes, however, the flow gets chaotic, with individuals weaving through the crowd on their own haphazard paths to the other side.

• Mathematicians crack 40-year-old problem on quasiregularly elliptic manifolds

  A mathematical problem solved by Susanna Heikkilä relates to the classification of quasiregularly elliptic 4-manifolds, asking what four-dimensional shapes can be obtained by deforming four-dimensional Euclidean geometry. The article by Heikkilä and Pekka Pankka has been published in the Annals of Mathematics journal.

• Mathematicians move the needle on the Kakeya conjecture, a decades-old geometric problem

  Mathematicians from New York University and the University of British Columbia have resolved a decades-old geometric problem, the Kakeya conjecture in 3D, which studies the shape left behind by a needle moving in multiple directions.

• Study finds soccer teams move as though they are a single person, offering new insights into collective behavior

  What do albatrosses searching for food, stock market fluctuations, and the dispersal patterns of seeds in the wind have in common?

• Boys in England significantly outperforming girls in math and science

  Recent data shows boys in years 5 and 9 in England have scored significantly higher than girls in math and science compared with 2019, report UCL researchers who analyzed the latest Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS).

• How will artificial intelligence affect wealth equality?

  How will artificial intelligence affect the distribution of income and wealth this century? After falling through much of the 20th century, income inequality, measured as the fraction of income going to the richest 1% of residents, has been rising since the 1980s. The fraction has doubled in both China and the United States during that time, increased by 50% in Europe and one-third worldwide.

• Taking a leap of faith into imaginary numbers opens new doors in the real world through complex analysis

  To a nonmathematician, having the letter "i" represent a number that does not quite exist and is "imaginary" can be hard to wrap your head around. If you open your mind to this way of thinking, however, a whole new world becomes possible.

• How good are South African kids at math? Trends from a global study

  School mathematics in South Africa is often seen as a sign of the health of the education system more generally. Under the racial laws of apartheid, until 1994, African people were severely restricted from learning math. Tracking the changes in math performance is a measure of how far the country has traveled in overcoming past injustices. Math is also an essential foundation for meeting the challenges of the future, like artificial intelligence, climate change, energy and sustainable development.

• Dudeney's 120-year-old dissection puzzle solution proves optimal

  In 1907, the English author and mathematician Henry Ernest Dudeney posed a puzzle: Can any equilateral triangle be cut into as few pieces as possible that will fit together to form a perfect square? Four weeks later, he presented an elegant solution, showing that only four pieces were needed.

• AI-based math: Individualized support for students uses eye tracking

  Researchers at the Technical University of Munich (TUM) and the University of Cologne have developed an AI-based learning system that recognizes strengths and weaknesses in mathematics by tracking eye movements with a webcam to generate problem-solving hints. This enables teachers to provide significantly more children with individualized support.

• Hiring strategies: Researchers propose a model to maximize success in professional recruitment

  When it comes to hiring new staff, large companies often have to choose from hundreds of candidates, a process that requires time and resources. Can mathematics help streamline these procedures? At least in the broadest sense, probably yes.

• Nessie loves a sunny summer's day—how anecdotes become data

  New research from the University of St Andrews has used a database of Loch Ness Monster reports to translate anecdotes into data, shedding light on statistical biases and the importance of defining the right information for analysis.

• The math behind social distancing: The rules that influence epidemic behavior

  Studying epidemics can help us plan for the future and identify better ways of dealing with them. Now, in a new study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, a multi-institutional research team led by the Institute of Industrial Science, The University of Tokyo, has worked out how to understand social-distancing behavior.

• Mathematical model improves prediction of human mobility between cities

  How many people will travel during a given week between two specific cities? Answering this question is important for many reasons, for example, to design efficient public transport infrastructures, or, as was the case during the COVID-19 pandemic, to understand how mobility patterns could be used to predict the spread and evolution of the virus.