On the hunt for mathematical beauty
For anyone who has ever taken a commercial flight, it’s an all-too-familiar scene: Hundreds of passengers sit around waiting for boarding to begin, then rush to be at the front of the line as soon as it does. Boarding an aircraft can be a frustrating experience, with passengers often wondering if they will ever make it to their seats. But Alexei Borodin, a professor of mathematics at MIT, can predict how long it will take for you to board an airplane, no matter how long the line. That’s because Borodin studies difficult probability problems, using sophisticated mathematical tools to extract precise information from seemingly random groups. Alexei Borodin Photo: M. Scott Brauer “Imagine an airplane in which each row has one seat, and there are 100 seats,” Borodin says. “People line up in random order to fill the plane, and each person has a carry-on suitcase in their hand, which...