Analysis of data from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey reveals that the universe consists of
Cosmologist Max Tegmark of the University of Pennsylvania says, "I've always felt very uneasy about dark energy and dark matter, despite all the papers I've written about them. Now, I feel I have to accept them."
Here are links to 2 research articles posted by Tegmark and his team on October 28, 2003:
In related news, J. Richard Gotts (Princeton) and his team have been working on A Map of the Universe (article abstract)
How can you resist printable Logarithmic Maps of the Universe?
In unrelated news, J. Richard Gotts poses the question: What is the smallest "dull" number? and April Holladay answers (USA Today, October 17, 2003)
Gott relates an incident. In 1917, a great mathematical genius, Srinivasa Ramanujan, lay ill in a London hospital. His friend, the British mathematician G.H. Hardy came to visit. Hardy remarked that his taxi number, 1729, was dull.
"No," Ramanujan replied, "it's an interesting number; it is the smallest number expressible as the sum of two cubes (a cube is a number times itself three times) in two different ways."
Zounds! To be able to recognize such a fact upon hearing the number. (1729 equals 1 cubed plus 12 cubed, and also 9 cubed plus 10 cubed)
Gott's reaction, however, was to wonder what is a dull number.
I try to answer. Maybe a number is dull if no one uses it. Google.com to the rescue. What's the smallest number with no hits on the Internet?
Eventually, I get close. The number "13,965,320" returns only a single hit. The next number returns no hits. I've found it! It is:
13,965,320 plus 1.
The Google search still comes up empty: how long will that be true? Once a number becomes famous, it can no longer be "dull."
An Indian stamp issued in 1962 to commemorate the 75th anniversary of Ramanujan's birth.
Don't be hateful to people, just because they are hateful to you. Rather, be good to each other and to everyone else. Always be joyful and never stop praying. Whatever happens, keep thanking God because of Jesus Christ. This is what God wants you to do. --1st Thessalonians 5:15-18 CEV
