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Math Lamp Requires You To Number Crunch For Light
Posted by Adrian Covert at 5:30 AM on November 5, 2008
The arithmetic-challenged should avoid this lamp at all costs, because to turn it on, you're required to correctly solve a math problem. From the looks of this Mingyu Jeung creation, problems appear to be of the simple add/subtract/multiply/divide variety, so you don't need to be a math major to safely navigate your home. But if you're really bad at math, look on the "bright" side—you'll save a lot on your power bill! [Yanko Design]
There are plenty of carbon footprint calculators online, but now treehugging mathematicians can easily calculate how much damage they are doing to mother Earth using this handy pocket-sized CO2 calculator. Electricity use, water, trash and gas can all be managed from this simple, portable device (although, I don't see a button on there to calculate the impact all of your calculating has on the environment). Obviously, the CO2Calc is only available in Japan, but I'm sure it won't be long until a similar product makes its way stateside. And yes, it is solar powered if you were wondering—which is too bad. It would be funnier if it wasn't. [
Architecture has always been a mixture of art and engineering, but as we press on through the 21st century, the role of computers in the design process is becoming more and more integral. Algorithmic architecture is on the cutting edge of this movement, and the complex, rhythmic designs can be truly breathtaking. With that in mind, OObject has collected a list of 15 schemes that portray this emerging field at its best. [
Artist Etienne Meneau has made these amazing sculptural wine decanters, applying some fractal-ness to the design. As a result, they look pretty anatomical when you fill them with red wine: rather like the brachiated patterns of lungs or blood vessels. Bound to be conversation pieces at a party. Hand-made in borosilicate glass and about 60cm tall, they're in a very limited numbered and signed edition. But vinophile mathematicians or biologists keen to get one might have to save up some cash: each 75cl carafe costs around US$3,400. [
It may not be quite as sophisticated or cerebral as Starfleet's bio-neural computing gel packs, but scientists have made a start towards this sort of tech by making bacteria solve a math problem. The team from Davidson College and Missouri Western State University added genes to the harmless Escherichia coli, normally found wiggling its way 'round your gut. The result was a bacterial computer able to solve the classic mathematical puzzle called the Burnt Pancake Problem... kind of fitting for a gut bacterium, no?
For those who haven't yet heard, a band of number-crunching nostalgists took the concept design for Charles Babbage's Difference Engine No. 2, and turned it into a real, fully functional machine. Today, it went on display at the Computer History museum in San Jose. Difference Engine No. 2, designed in 1847, was designed to calculate and tabulate values run through polynomial functions up to the seventh order. It, along with the other Babbage Engines, is considered to be the first automatic computing machine.
NASA has been forced to check its math after a 13-year-old German boy wrote to tell them their calculations for the probability of an asteroid hitting earth were incorrect. Agency bosses had predicted a one-in-45,000 chance of an interstellar object bringing an end to life as we know it; that was until teen Nico Marquardt told them that the figure was closer to one in 450.
