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Mathematics

Physicists are turning to Lewis Carroll for help with their maths

By Gilead Amit

26 October 2018

Alice looks at cartoon cards

Lewis Caroll was the pen name for mathematician Charles Dodgson

Universal History Archive/Getty

Curiouser and curiouser! Particle physicists could have the author of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland to thank for simplifying their calculations.

Lewis Carroll, the 19th century children’s author, was the pen name of mathematician Charles Lutwidge Dodgson. While his mathematical contributions mostly proved unremarkable, one particular innovation may have stood the test of time.

Marcel Golz at Humboldt University, Berlin has built on Dodgson’s work to help simplify the complex equations that arise when physicists try to calculate what happens when …

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