The Pinocchio Paradox
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If Pinocchio says his nose will grow, but it doesn’t, he is lying.
But his nose grows when he lies, so he would be telling the truth.
Category: Math
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Dr. Grigory Perelman
By cookla, March 25, 2010 8:52 am
They say there is a thin line between genius and crazy. Dr. Grigory Perelman, a Russian mathematician who recently solved one of the Millennium problems, might be dancing on the line. The Millennium Prize Problems are seven problems in mathematics that were stated by the Clay Mathematics Institute in 2000. A correct solution to any of the problems results in a US$1,000,000 prize (sometimes called a Millennium Prize) being awarded by the institute.
After review by leading mathematical teams, the proof was confirmed in 2006 and Perelman was awarded the Millennium Prize on 18 March, 2010. Interestingly, he declined both the field medal and the Millennium Prize of $1,000,000. What is more strange is that he lives in an almost furniture-less cockroach-infested flat in St. Petersburg.
A brilliant mind at work, sometimes math is more important then money!
More info: link
Math problem of the week.
By cookla, March 19, 2010 3:15 pm
A new motel wants to number its rooms on the 1st and 2nd floors. The rooms on the 1st floor are numbered 100 – 126 and on the 2nd floor are numbered 200 – 226. The digits can only be purchased in packages that contain one of each of the digits 0–9. How many packages of digits will the motel need to purchase to number the rooms?
Problem courtesy of John Boyer.
My solution is in the comments.
Math problem of the week.
By cookla, March 5, 2010 3:00 pm
A faulty car odometer proceeds from digit 3 to digit 5, always skipping the digit 4, regardless of position. For example, after traveling one mile the odometer changed from 000039 to 000050. If the odometer now reads 002010, how many miles has the car actually traveled?
Problem courtesy of John Boyer.
My solution is in the comments.
Math problem of the week.
By cookla, February 12, 2010 2:52 pm
The fifth and eighth terms of a geometric sequence of real numbers are 7! and 8! respectively. What is the first term?
Problem courtesy of John Boyer.
My solution is in the comments.
Nikki Grazian
By cookla, February 4, 2010 12:58 pm
Photographer Nikki Graziano takes pictures and then maps mathematical functions over them. I have been guilty of doing this in the past (the beach definitely is a great place to find nice curves!) This a fun and interesting way of combining math, nature, and art.
More info: link
From Fish to Infinity
By cookla, February 2, 2010 1:21 pm
In an attempt to teach a friend everything about mathematics, Steven Strogatz of the New York Times will be writing about the elements of mathematics, from pre-school to grad school, over the next several weeks. It’s not intended to be remedial. The goal is to give you a better feeling for what math is all about and why it’s so enthralling to those who get it.
I’m going to try to follow this, as I’m always trying to either explain mathematics to someone or to get them excited about it! I hope that this little series turns out to be something grand.
So, the first weeks lesson? Pre-school with a lesson from Sesame Street!
The best introduction to numbers I’ve ever seen — the clearest and funniest explanation of what they are and why we need them — appears in a “Sesame Street” video called “123 Count With Me.” Humphrey, an amiable but dim-witted fellow with pink fur and a green nose, is working the lunch shift at The Furry Arms hotel, when he takes a call from a room full of penguins. Humphrey listens carefully and then calls out their order to the kitchen: “Fish, fish, fish, fish, fish, fish.” This prompts Ernie to enlighten him about the virtues of the number six.
More info: link
Drake Equation explains lack of aliens and girlfriends..
By cookla, January 14, 2010 11:04 am
The Drake Equation is used to estimate the number of highly evolved civilizations that might exist in our galaxy. Warwick University’s Peter Backus applies the Drake equation to discover why, exactly, he can’t find a girlfriend. The results are not encouraging. The probability of finding love in the UK is only about 100 times better than the probability of finding intelligent life in our galaxy.
So, what this means is that there are 10,510 people in the UK that satisfy these most basic criteria for being my girlfriend. That is 0.00017% of the UK and 0.0014% of Londoners, which doesn’t seem so bad. On a given night in London, there is greater than a 1 in 1000 chance that I will meet an attractive woman between the ages of 24 and 34 with a university degree. Of course this does not take into account the fraction of these women that will find me attractive (depressingly low), the fraction of these women who will be single (falling with age) and, perhaps most importantly, the fraction of these women who I will get along with. Including such factors would greatly reduce the above figure of 10,510. A rough estimate puts the number of potential girlfriends accounting for these three additional criteria (1 in 20 of the women find me attractive, half are single and I get along with 1 in 10) at 26. That’s correct. There are 26 women in London with whom I might have a wonderful relationship. So, on a given night out in London there is a 0.0000034% chance of meeting one of these special people, about 100 times better than finding an alien civilization we can communicate with. That’s a 1 in 285,000 chance. Not great.
More info + all the math: link
Google confirms 1 as the loneliest number
By cookla, January 8, 2010 2:38 pm
What was once assumed by many has now been confirmed by the great minds over at Google. The number 1 is, in fact, the loneliest number. .
Themocracy