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In new research, TU/e's Mireille Boutin has obtained major results that help improve GPS technologies using unconventional mathematical techniques. The summer holidays are ending, which for many concludes with a long drive home and reliance on GPS devices to get safely home. But every now and then, GPS devices can suggest strange directions or get briefly confused about your location.

Researchers from TU/e and the University of Chicago discovered how to manipulate turbulent flows to create regular patterns like those seen in the tabby coat pattern of a cat. The new research has been published in Nature. Controlling the chaos of a turbulent flow to make regular patterns sounds like a contradiction in every sense of the word.

Physical experiments and simulations offer more insight into mathematical phenomenon 'sausage catastrophe' Researchers from Utrecht University and the University of Twente have investigated the mathematical sphere packing problem through physical experiments and computer simulations. The study illustrates how a finite quantity of spheres can be packed most efficiently.

NWO has awarded funding of 760,000 euros for research into the mathematical modelling of thin polymer films. In the PRONTO project, mathematicians at Utrecht University and computational chemists at the University of Amsterdam will work together with non-academic partners to develop a new generation of models for materials science.

In a new publication in Nature Communications, a team of physicists from Amsterdam, Leiden and Atlanta show how to 'puppeteer' lab-designed metamaterials. By only touching these materials from the outside, they are able to predict and perform precise deformations of the whole material. Puppeteering is the art of pulling and pushing strings and rods to cause a puppet to move in a coordinated fashion.