When is a billiard ball not a billiard ball? When mathematicians get involved and view a popular game as a model computer.

(Sergey Tsvirov/500px/Getty Images) It's hard to imagine a system of physics simpler than a billiard table. Send a ball across the table, and its path follows a simple rule: It travels in a straight ...

[T-Kuhn]’s Octo-Bouncer platform has learned some new tricks since we saw it last. If you haven’t seen it before, this device uses computer vision from a camera mounted underneath its thick, clear ...