A mathematical tragedy

Almost two centuries ago, Sophie Germain was the first woman known to have discovered significant math theorems. She wanted to prove that Fermat's theorem was correct but her theorem was almost lost to history. Fermat told his theory about 350 years before mathematicians finally came up with a proof for it that it was right.(thats...a loonnng time) In 1995, Andrew Wiles from Princeton University found out the problem...In Germain's day, mathematicians working on that specific problem did one problem one by one. Germain's theory would have proven it in one shot. After 80 years, her work on the theory was so totally unknown, people doing math reproved her results.
Sophie Germain (1776–1831) was the first woman known to have discovered significant mathematical theorems.

http://www.sciencenews.org/articles/20080301/mathtrek.asp

SPAM ALERT!!!

People who have email ask the same question as surprised diners "Who ordered the spam?"(probably u dont but mebbe other peeps) Nobody did but sending back the spam only brings more spam. New tools were made for fighting the spams like the filters that look for telltale signs that a message is spam but the spammers easily defeat the filters, spammers disguise their words and intent of their messages. To get what you want from the server (which is no spams) , you have to use intricate, trained filters that use math and that makes it not bring up any spams. Using Bayes' Theorem avoids the spammer's messages. Spammers adapt their messages to avoid many anti-spam tools. If you have an email you notice certain words that look like a spam such as: "You won 1,000,000 dollars!" Your filter (if you have one that uses math) recognizes similar words as more spams come up, so it gets trained to not bring up the certain email again. This is a powerful application (Bayes' Theorem) of an old and basic mathematical result. Mathematicians use old and new mathematical tools to continue advancing their skills to battle spams.

http://www.ams.org/ams/mm36-spam.pdf

3.14 day! (march 14th)

PI DAY!!!
March 14th is PI Day! The first international holiday of cyberspace which is a holiday celebrated in the United States, and around the world. Mostly Greeks celebrate this holiday. On PI Day at Pi Headquarters, math geeks, students, use PI and eat it too! March 14th is PI Day because the first three digits are 3.14 and that makes it March 14th.(isnt that kinda cool?) At the time 1:59pm...(why not am?)3.14159 are the first six digits of PI, the annual ritual Drop of the Giant PI takes place at PI Day ground zero.(the cyberspace emporium/marketplace which is the high temple and sine qua non for math lovers) The annual drop of the Giant PI is basically like the dropping of the New Year's ball in Times Square also maybe like the ledgendary arrival of Santa at Macy's. You may be now thinking who celebrates this holiday and guess who it might be, maybe your neighbor, math lovers, geeks, and all types of nerds.(those ones were pretty obvious) Maybe lots of other people like teachers, students, professors, college students, financial analysts, rocket scientists,(e.t.c.) PI day is a part of a new breed of "geek holidays" which includes Mole Day.

http://www.dm.unito.it/personalpages/cerruti/mathnews.html

Frog as big as a bowling ball

Bowlin'!

A frog, the size of a bowling ball lived in the time dinosaurs lived in! This discovery of the Beelzebufo or Devil Toad captured the attention of scientists that found the frog's fossils.

The frog's cousin is the Malagasy frog, largest known living cousin. The Malagasy frog's bones were in Madagascar. It weighs 10 pounds and is 16in. long. (That is heavier than a newborn baby!) This frog is related to another frog smaller than this but in South America. David Krause, a paleantologist from one of New York's univercities began finding peices of abnormally large frog fossils in Madagascar off the coast of Africa, in 1993. They dated back to the late Cretaceous period. Over in Madagascar, Krause found crocodile and dinosaur fossils. Krause's team assembled enough frog fossils to piece together what it would have looked like and how much it weighed.

The largest living frog, the Goliath frog of West Africa, can reach 7 pounds. But Krause said that it isnt related to the Beelzebufo. He said that it seems to be a relative of South American horned frogs. South American horned frogs are popular as pets, they're sometimes called pacman frogs for their huge mouths. (I know I won't have one as a pet because if it runs loose inside the house at night, I won't want to feel something slimy, wet and cold crawling in my around in my bed!)
Beelzebufo frogs are different than regular frogs because they have teeth, wide mouth, powerful jaws bones that are extremely thick with ridges and grooves characteristic of some type of armor or protective shield.

(The name comes from the Greek word for devil: Beelzebub. And in Latin for toad, bufo)

Since continents drifted apart, Madagascar would have been separated by ocean from South America during the Beelzebufo's time. And frogs can't survive long in saltwater, Krause noted. Krause thinks that the Beelzebufo provides evidence for competing theories that are still have to do something about the land masses that late in time, perhaps thats why Antarctica was much more warmer than today.

http://www.cnn.com/2008/TECH/science/02/18/frog.fossil.ap/index.html