The Aperiodical 

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Interesting Esoterica Summation, volume 8

By Christian Lawson-Perfect. Posted November 27, 2013

Mathematicians! Stop what you’re doing! I’ve almost certainly got something more interesting for you here. It’s been a good while since I last updated you on the contents of my Interesting Esoterica collection, and I have a proportionate number of mathematical curiosities to entertain and bewilder you with.

In case you’re new to this: every now and then I encounter a paper or a book or an article that grabs my interest but isn’t directly useful for anything. It might be about some niche sub-sub-subtopic I’ve never heard of, or it might talk about something old from a new angle, or it might just have a funny title. I put these things in my Interesting Esoterica collection on Mendeley. And then when I’ve gathered up enough, I collect them here.

In this post the titles are links to the original sources, and I try to add some interpretation or explanation of why I think each thing is interesting below the abstract.

Some things might not be freely available, or even available for a reasonable price. Sorry.

What do these three pictures have in common?

By Liz Hind. Posted November 24, 2013



What do these three pictures have in common?

The first is the bust of Nefertiti, an Egyptian queen. The bust is now in the Neues Museum in Berlin and is one of the most beautiful works of art. Nefertiti is translated as “a beautiful woman has come”. The word nefer is in this case translated as ‘beautiful’.

The second is a drawing of a Grecian urn by Keats. Keats’ Ode on a Grecian Urn ends with the line “Beauty is truth, truth beauty,”.

The third picture is part of the Moscow Mathematical Papyrus from ancient Egypt.

Probability of dealing four perfect hands of cards in a world of random shufflers

By Peter Rowlett. Posted November 18, 2013

A couple of months ago (really? Two years?! Man!) I posted about an extraordinary coincidence: in a game of whist at a village hall in Kineton, Warwickshire, each of four players had been dealt an entire suit each. My post ‘Four perfect hands: An event never seen before (right?)‘ discussed this story. What really interested me was that the quoted mathematical analysis — and figure of 2,235,197,406,895,366,368,301,559,999 to 1 — appears to be correct; what lets down the piece is poor modelling. The probability calculated relies on the assumption that the deck is completely randomly ordered. Apart from the fact that new decks of cards come sorted into suits, whist is a game of collecting like cards together, so a coincidental ordering must be made more likely. Still unlikely enough to be worthy of mention in a local paper, maybe, but not “this is the first time this hand has ever been dealt in the history of the game”-unlikely.

Anyway, last week I was asked where the quoted figure 2,235,197,406,895,366,368,301,559,999 to 1 actually comes from. Here’s my shot at it.

Carnival of Mathematics 104

By Katie Steckles. Posted November 11, 2013

The next issue of the Carnival of Mathematics, rounding up blog posts from the month of October, and compiled by Shecky Riemann, is now online at Math-Frolic.


The Carnival rounds up maths blog posts from all over the internet, including some from our own Aperiodical. See our Carnival of Mathematics page for more information.

Why maths isn’t like science (and may be evil)

By Peter Rowlett. Posted November 7, 2013

Yesterday I gave a talk to the Nottingham Trent University Maths Society, ‘A brief history of mathematics: 5,000 years from Egypt to Nottingham Trent’. I had a slide in this where I said something about what the Greek style of proof means for mathematics. It has helped me put my finger on something of why mathematics isn’t like science, and I thought I would share it here so I can look it up when I’ve forgotten again.

The Chris Tarrant Problem

By Colin Beveridge. Posted November 6, 2013

This is a puzzle I presented at the MathsJam conference. It’s a problem that gave me a headache for a week or so, and I thought others might enjoy it, too. I do know the answer, but I’m not going to give it away — you can tweet me @icecolbeveridge if you want to discuss your theories! (As Colin Wright says: don’t tell people the answer).

You’ve heard of the Monty Hall Problem, right?

From the Mailbag: Dual Inversal Numbers

By Katie Steckles. Posted November 2, 2013

Katie, one of our editors, has been contacted by Brendan with a question about some maths he’s been investigating. Read on to find out what he’s discovered, and read Katie’s response.

Dear The Aperiodical,

I’ve noticed an interesting property of numbers, and I wondered if you could tell me if this is something which is already known to mathematicians? I’ve been calling them Dual Inversal Numbers, but I’d love to know if they have an existing name, and if there’s anything else you can tell me about them.