Behind the Curve

A beginner-level introduction to elliptic curve cryptography (which is what will be keeping your information safe online for the immediate future).  Nick Sullivan:

"Elliptic curve cryptography (ECC) is one of the most powerful but least understood types of cryptography in wide use today. An increasing number of websites make extensive use of ECC to secure everything from customers' HTTPS connections to how they pass data between data centers. Fundamentally, it's important for end users to understand the technology behind any security system in order to trust it. To that end, we looked around to find a good, relatively easy-to-understand primer on ECC in order to share with our users. Finding none, we decided to write one ourselves."

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Hexaflexagon!

More interesting than an octagon and more intimidating that a five-sided fistagon:  the HeXaFLeXaGon!   Surrender your mysteries to me, O many-sided device...

We've advanced to squares.

Julie Rehmeyer @ Science News:

"The Harvard graduate student in physics was fascinated by the beautiful and intricate geometric "girih" patterns on the 800-year-old buildings there, and he wanted to know how ancient artisans had created them. He discovered more than just a clever construction method. He also found an entirely unexpected level of mathematical sophistication in the designs, pointing at mathematical ideas that weren't formally developed until hundreds of years later."

I'm not sure how 800 years ago counts as "ancient", but interesting nonetheless.

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