The Russian way to multiply is so much cooler than ours

To do the method, begin by writing the two numbers you want to multiply at the top of two columns. In the left column, you ...
The Economist

China’s chipmakers are cleverly innovating around America’s limits

THE MICROCHIP wars have been running since 2018. That was when America under Donald Trump (and later Joe Biden and Mr Trump again) began imposing increasingly onerous export restrictions on ...
Scientific American

This Number System Beats Binary, But Most Computers Can’t Use It

The Babylonians used separate combinations of two symbols to represent every single number from 1 to 59. That sounds pretty confusing, doesn’t it? Our decimal system seems simple by comparison, with ...
IEEE

Leveraging Dual Output LUTs with Pipelining for Efficient BCD to Binary Converter on FPGA

Abstract: Decimal operands expressed in BCD is often the convenient data format used in embedded systems and human-centric applications. For optimized arithmetic computation on hardware where binary ...
Astronomy

Binary star system finally discovered near Milky Way center

A binary star system, designated D9, has been discovered orbiting the Milky Way's supermassive black hole (SMBH), providing the first compelling evidence that previously enigmatic G objects are ...
Quanta Magazine

How Base 3 Computing Beats Binary

Three, as Schoolhouse Rock! told children of the 1970s, is a magic number. Three little pigs; three beds, bowls and bears for Goldilocks; three Star Wars trilogies. You need at least three legs for a ...
The New York Times

New York and Hollywood Lore by Amor Towles (Martini Optional)

“Table for Two” is a collection of six stories and a novella set in two very different cultural capitals. By Hamilton Cain Hamilton Cain is a book critic and the author of “This Boy’s Faith: Notes ...
Popular Mechanics

A Math Genius Created the Decimal Point and Became a Legend. Turns Out He Stole It.

The humble decimal point may have been invented about 150 years before we previously thought. Experts had previously credited German mathematician Christopher Clavius for the innovation, but according ...
Smithsonian Magazine

The Decimal Point Is 150 Years Older Than Previously Thought, Medieval Manuscript Reveals

Math historian Glen Van Brummelen came across decimal points in Giovanni Bianchini's manuscript, Tabulae primi mobilis B. Van Brummelen / Historia Mathematica, 2024 For years, historians thought ...
NPR

The decimal point was in use 150 years before previously thought, research shows

NPR's Scott Simon talks to math historian Glen Van Brummelen about his finding that the decimal point appeared in the 1440s, earlier than thought. How did the decimal point come to be? - the dot that ...
Live Science

World's oldest known decimal point discovered in merchant's notes from 1440s Italy

Decimal points are at least 150 years older than historians thought, according to newly unearthed notes from Venetian merchant Giovanni Bianchini, who practiced astrology in the 1440s. When you ...