# Category Archives: Fun Stuff

## 5.714825714

I finally caught the Avengers: Infinity War on the big screen more than a month after it was released, in which time it had already became the fourth highest grossing films of all time. As of writing, it has surpassed … Continue reading

## What are the chances that a bird will poop on my car?

This question was posed as a scenario of mathematics in everyday life. Some googling led to Randall “XKCD” Munroe’s post here. Borrowing similar ideas leads to my own computation below. I park at an open air carpark for work. The … Continue reading

## Catalan numbers

I really enjoyed reading Federico Ardila’s article in the Mathematical Intelligencer. Apparently there was a vote of 3030 members at an assembly of CUP (Not Cambridge University Press but the Candidatura d’Unitat Popular). The vote had to do with forming … Continue reading

## One-seventh ellipse

Fun fact. It is well known that $\frac{1}{7} = 0.\overline{142857}$. It turns out that if the repeating digits are taken in sequence as (x,y) pairs in the following manner to form six points: (1,4), (4,2), (2,8), (8,5), (5,7), … Continue reading

## Logic joke

Three logicians walk into a bar. The bartender says:”Do you all want a drink?” First logician says “I don’t know.” Second says “I don’t know.” Third says “Yes!”. Meta: Why is this a joke?

## A Sunday Morning Geometry Problem

It’s 6.15 am on a Sunday morning, 18th October to be exact. The newspapers have not been delivered and the kids are still sleeping. Some peace and quiet for me to do some reading while sipping my morning coffee … … Continue reading

## SEND SOME MORE MONEY

It’s been 9 years since I blogged on SEND MORE MONEY. I got back into this because I found out that the author of SEND MORE MONEY is Henry Dudeney and the puzzle apparently appeared in Strand Magazine vol. 68 … Continue reading

## Prime (Car) Number

It has always been a regret of epsilon proportion that my car license plate number doesn’t have particular significance. For example it is is divisible by 7 and hence not a prime, unlike the fact that my apartment number and … Continue reading

Posted in Fun Stuff, Number Theory | 1 Comment

## 3.14.15 and Einstein

14 March 2015, was supposed to be the Pi day of the century — for obvious reasons. 14 March is also Einstein’s birthday, and 2015 interestingly marked 100 years of the theory of relativity. I liked this article written by … Continue reading

## Millenium Bookball

is a pretty cool mathematical sculpture by George Hart. Gone with the Wind, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, The Cat in the Hat, Green Eggs and Ham. What is not to like? Speaking of which, I still cannot believe that … Continue reading

## Mathematics and poetry

A nice article by Ornes on slate and a paper by Glaz. My favourites has to be the Fermat Last Theorem Poetry Challenge which I have read about previously elsewhere. Here’s one entry by E. Howe, H. Lenstra, D. Moulton: … Continue reading

Posted in Fun Stuff | 1 Comment

## Maths & Fashion

That headline caught my eye and earned the newspaper article a more detailed look. It’s about a sub brand from Issey Miyake called 132.5, which apparently stands for 1 piece of material which forms a 3d dress but yet can … Continue reading

## Of word problems and place values

If you google “Abbott & Costello 7 x 13 = 28″, you can get a funny sketch of how to show 7 x 13 = 28 by dividing, multiplying and adding. There are a couple of versions, and in one … Continue reading

## That’s an emphatic NO!

all 49% of it. Seen via math-fail.com I was curious about the source and google pointed me here. To restore our sanity, here’s a neat problem from the 2012 AMC 8: Let R be a set of 9 distinct integers. … Continue reading

## I have trouble finding the mathematics

Two unrelated incidents. First, I attended a talk by Sergiy Klymchuk who talked about misconceptions in mathematics, especially in calculus. He also pointed out an example of a disastrous error in a paper published in a highly rated mathematics education … Continue reading

## 42

What is the answer to the life, the universe and everything? Using the simplest encryption scheme, that of setting a to 1, b to 2, etc. math = 13+1+20+8. That cannot be a simple coincidence.

Posted in Fun Stuff | 1 Comment

## What’s an eigenface?

With the recent korean wave, we get to see lots of Korean pop, tv, movie stars in the media. But I found that I can never tell them apart. Especially, the ladies, tall, thin, beautiful but too homogenous. (Of course, … Continue reading

## Whither the golden ratio

According to this report from the Guardian, someone claims that the golden ratio pleases the eye because of scanning ratios, i.e. how fast the eye scans things horizontally versus vertically. The actual paper is supposed to be free access (with … Continue reading