Hello. It’s been a while since the last Aperiodical. That’s exactly how long it takes me to prepare and write each issue, so here we are. “Here” is not where it used to be, so I should explain — The Aperiodical is now the name of a big maths conblogerate, of which these untimely collections…
Are these game shows so lacking in skill they’re gambling?
The Mail on Sunday is reporting that “some of Britain’s most popular TV game shows could be forced off the air after regulators launched a probe into whether they constitute gambling”. The paper claims that game shows Deal Or No Deal, Red Or Black? and a proposal to revive Play Your Cards Right “could be breaking…
Another black and white hats puzzle
A classic maths puzzle involves a line of one hundred prisoners, who have each been given a black or white hat by their nefarious captor, and must each correctly shout out the colour of their hat to win freedom. The twist is that the prisoners don’t know the colour of their own hat, and though…
New model may explain leaf growth
Leaves don’t just grow equally in all directions, or they would have a regular shape. To understand how a few cells give rise to such complex structures as leaves is described in the abstract of a new paper in Science as “a major challenge in biology”. The paper presents a new model that shows how…
Awards for statistical excellence in journalism
Nominations are open for the Royal Statistical Society’s awards for statistical excellence in journalism. Eligible work must have been published or broadcast between 1 January 2011 and 31 December 2011. Awards are to be made in three categories: print publication online publication broadcast media When nominating, you are asked to indicate in which area or…
Using a zero-knowledge protocol to prove you can solve a sudoku
I’ve just uploaded to youtube a video I made with Katie Steckles to demonstrate why zero-knowledge protocols exist and how one works. Katie is a habitual liar, so we followed the zero-knowledge protocol described in the paper, “Cryptographic and Physical Zero-Knowledge Proof Systems for Solutions of Sudoku Puzzles” which you can download from http://www.mit.edu/~rothblum/papers/sudoku.pdf By following…
Previous Aperiodical Round Ups
Before this magnificent website existed, I published four editions of what was then known as The Internet Maths Aperiodical at Samuel Hansen’s site ACME Science. You can find those earlier works in their own category at ACME Science.