The Guild of Scientific Troubadours

The Guild of Scientific Troubadours

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mathematics

Scientific illustration diagramming a particular kind of game theory based on decision-making ... resuling in a graph that looks like a series of gothic arches.

Science Art: A four stage sequential game with a foresight bound, Marco Mantovani

28 July 2025 grant 0

This is a game theory diagram from the paper, “Limited backward induction: foresight and behavior in sequential games,” though I found it on Wikimedia Commons.

It’s… Read the rest “Science Art: A four stage sequential game with a foresight bound, Marco Mantovani”

Scientific illustration in the form of a board on which rows of mathematical knots are mounted, complex geometries in loops of cord.

Science Art: Mathematical Knot Table 01, by Rodrigo Argenton

13 April 2025 grant 0

These are knots. Not knots used to tie down boats or headstrong horses, but knots used to explore geometries of space.

The display was made by Estes Objethos Atelier, but the photo was taken… Read the rest “Science Art: Mathematical Knot Table 01, by Rodrigo Argenton”

Whalesong is structured like a language.

9 February 2025 grant 0

Astrobiology reports on a cross-disciplinary study that has found that the song of humpback whales has the same distinct mathematical structure as a human language:

Humpback whale song

… Read the rest “Whalesong is structured like a language.”
Scientific illustration of angles, forming squares, rectangles, and other polygons. Mathematics in colorful patterns.

Science Art: 10,000 convex and nonconvex regular polygons, by Arthur Baelde.

18 December 2024 grant 0

This is from the “Posters about Mathematics” section of Wikimedia Commons.

The description says: “For a young child, a shape can be called a square if its sides are vertical… Read the rest “Science Art: 10,000 convex and nonconvex regular polygons, by Arthur Baelde.”

Scientific illustration of a tangled ball of pink worms (called blackworms) against a black background.

Science Art: Ball-shaped blob of California black worms, 2023.

11 August 2024 grant 0

This is a biological photo that is also a mathematical photo. It’s a ball of worms that Georgia Tech researchers were studying, because, as it says on the National Science Foundation… Read the rest “Science Art: Ball-shaped blob of California black worms, 2023.”

Scientific illusttration in black and white of an ancient Swedish labyrinth, looking a little like a drawing of a brain.

Science Art: Trojeborg, a stone labyrinth from Visby, 1919

8 July 2024 grant 0

This is an illustration from Nordisk Familjebok, a Norwegian encyclopedia from the turn of the last century. The labyrinth, naturally, is much older. It’s of a sort that can be laid… Read the rest “Science Art: Trojeborg, a stone labyrinth from Visby, 1919”

Scientific illustration of a times table.

Science Art: Binary Operations – Multiplication Mod 16, by Inductiveload.

10 July 2023 grant 0

This is a diagram of a times table. As the drawing’s description on Wikimedia Commons reads:

Binary ring diagram to illustrate operators on binary numbers. The least significant

… Read the rest “Science Art: Binary Operations – Multiplication Mod 16, by Inductiveload.”

ChatGPT flunks Martin Gardner’s old brainteasers.

31 May 2023 grant 0

If you’re a longtime Scientific American reader, or just a geek of a certain age, you’ll remember Martin Gardner’s “Mathematical Games” puzzle column.… Read the rest “ChatGPT flunks Martin Gardner’s old brainteasers.”

Magpie on the Gallows, a mathematical illustration of an impossible object

Science Art: Magpie on the Gallows, Pieter Bruegel the Elder, 1568

24 October 2021 grant 0

Oh, a beautiful Renaissance landscape by one of those Lowland masters, a naturalistic scene of people meeting merrily on a wooded path between the village center and some large, important… Read the rest “Science Art: Magpie on the Gallows, Pieter Bruegel the Elder, 1568”

Scientific illustration of three-dimentsional solids, illustrating geometric ideas in an Early Modern woodcut.

Science Art: Plate VI from Here, a number of broken gifts for the carpenters and lovers…., by Lorenz Stöer, 1567.

13 June 2021 grant 0

I’ve posted illustrations from this remarkable book of geometric studies before. This one looks, to this old gamer’s eyes, like 1D4+1D20+1. (For non-gamers: It’s… Read the rest “Science Art: Plate VI from Here, a number of broken gifts for the carpenters and lovers…., by Lorenz Stöer, 1567.”

Science Art: In s is das Centrum fur den Meridian ANQ, 1857

20 December 2020 grant 0

Click to embiggen

As described on Wikimedia Commons (who got this diagram from the British Library), the image was “taken from page 100 of ‘Grundzüge der mathematischen Geographie… Read the rest “Science Art: In s is das Centrum fur den Meridian ANQ, 1857”

Scientific illustration of geometrical figures.

Science Art: From Here, a number of broken gifts for the carpenters and lovers…., by Lorenz Stöer, 1567.

12 July 2020 grant 0

Click to embiggen
The title here is the best I could render from the middle German “Hier Inn etliche zerbrochne Gebew, den Schreinern in eingelegter Arbeit dienstlich, auch vil andern… Read the rest “Science Art: From Here, a number of broken gifts for the carpenters and lovers…., by Lorenz Stöer, 1567.”

SONG: “Math” (a penitential cover)

20 April 2019 grant 0

SONG: “Math” (a penitential cover)

ARTIST: grant.

SOURCE: This has no scientific source; it’s a penitential cover for being late for March’s song (which I still… Read the rest “SONG: “Math” (a penitential cover)”

There’s an easy fix for gerrymandering, if Congress can count two decimal places.

4 December 2018 grant 0

In Forbes, Johns Hopkins Professor of Biomedical Engineering, Computer Science, and Biostatistics Steven Salzberg has put forward a modest mathematical proposal to solve some of our… Read the rest “There’s an easy fix for gerrymandering, if Congress can count two decimal places.”

We’re getting bigger: “It will be harder to feed 9 billion people in 2050 than it would be today.”

13 November 2018 grant 0

Gemini Research News has some bad news for the Earth’s growing population. It turns out that our farms will face some trouble because we’re going to be bigger, healthier, and… Read the rest “We’re getting bigger: “It will be harder to feed 9 billion people in 2050 than it would be today.””

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Honorary Troubadours
  • Jonathan Coulton, Contributing Troubadour for Popular Science.
  • Laura Veirs, who knows her way around a polysyllable.
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  • Cosmos II, a.k.a. Boston University astronomer Alan Marscher.
  • Dr. Fiorella Terenzi, astrophysicist who makes music from cosmic radio sources.
  • Dr. Jim Webb, astronomy professor and acoustic guitarist.
  • Artichoke, the band behind 26 Scientists, Vols. I and II.
  • They Might Be Giants, unrelenting proponents of scientific popular song.
  • Symphonies of Science, the people who make Carl Sagan and others sing.
  • Giant Squid, doom metal about the sublime horrors of marine biology.
  • Gethan Dick,6 scientists, 6 musicians, 1 great album
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"Is it a fact—or have I dreamt it—that, by means of electricity, the world of matter has become a great nerve, vibrating thousands of miles in a breathless point of time?"
— Nathaniel Hawthorne, The House of the Seven Gables, 1851

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