The problem of repeating courses at Arzak
Sancho Garcés III the Elder (born between 992 and 996) was king of Pamplona from 1004 until his death in 1035. His reign is considered to be the period of greatest hegemony of the kingdom […]
Articles by Juan Luis Varona
Sendov conjecture
Among the simplest objects in mathematics are polynomials in one variable. Children study them in schools and high schools and, at least many of them, learn to operate with them and understand quite a few […]
I hope to die without ever having to use Microsoft Word (by D. Knuth)
Since 1962, Donald Knuth, a professor at Stanford University, has been involved in the publication of his well-known monograph The Art of Computer Programming, an extensive treatise on algorithms and programming methods. The influence of […]
Ramanujan and partitions (and II)
In our previous post, we learned about the partitioning problem, and here we will look at the contributions that Ramanujan made together with Hardy. Ramanujan’s work One of the topics that Hardy and Ramanujan worked […]
Ramanujan and partitions (I)
26 April 2020 marks the 100th anniversary of the death of the brilliant Indian mathematician Srinivasa Ramanujan who, with minimal academic education, made extraordinary contributions to mathematical analysis, number theory, series and continued fractions. Ramanujan […]
A test with 30% reliability
These days, we have all heard that the Spanish government had bought, from a certain Chinese company, \(640\,000\) fast coronavirus detection tests whose reliability was only \(30\%\), so they had to return them. A \(30\%\) […]
Analysis of Covid-19 using a SEIR model
In mathematics, modelling is an attempt to extract the significantly important aspects of a real situation and translate them into mathematical expressions and equations. Except in very simple processes, what is obtained will never be […]
The Kung-Traub conjecture turns 46 years old
Huh? What’s this about commemorating something being 46 years old? Has this author gone mad? (even if you know me, don’t feel obliged to send me your opinion). It is true that we are all […]
Prime generating functions and the Buenos Aires constant
It is common knowledge that humankind has been fascinated by prime numbers since its origins. On the Ishango bone, an Upper Palaeolithic tool (the fibula of a baboon discovered in 1960 in Africa, to be more […]
33: The “jota” of Ollauri
When I come across the number 33 I remember my grandmother Rosario who, every time she heard that number, associated it with “la jota de Ollauri”. Apparently, there was a time when some people from […]