For fans of outlandishly devious puzzles, the highlight of every Christmas is the RSS Quiz. No statistical knowledge is needed, but you will need all of your lateral thinking skills, extreme Google-fu and inspired leaps of pure intuition (these will form a set of what mathematicians call ‘necessary but not sufficient conditions’). You can’t win…
Are Christmas Cracker jokes not funny because they’re cleverly designed to inspire a sense of friendship through shared disappointment? Or are there just not many workable puns available with Yuletide subject matter? Either way, the one thing guaranteed to make them even unfunnier is shoehorning in some obscure mathematical concepts. So why not have a…
If you’re a knitter or crocheter, or just like making things, knitter and mathematician Pat Ashforth has put together a knitting pattern for cube-shaped baubles with the structure of Borromean Rings (each of the three components is linked through the others, and can’t be separated, but if any one of them is cut, the other…
The National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC) has announced 1st February 2019 as ‘Number Day 2019’, saying:
It’s maths, but not as you know it.
Join thousands of schools for a mega maths-inspired fundraising day and raise money for the NSPCC.
Whether you dedicate a day or an hour to being a maths maverick, every pound you raise counts towards our fight for every childhood.
Schools that register get digital resources to use in class, fundraising tips, maths activities, posters and safeguarding teacher resources.
Number Day 2019 at NSPCC.
Our Katie was on BBC Two last night! As part of the QI Christmas special, Katie told that old chestnut about infinitely many mathematicians walking into a bar.
Viewers in the UK can see the show on the iPlayer; Katie’s segment starts about 12 minutes in.
Friend of the Aperiodical James Grime made this video in 2009 discussing the arithmetic of the Twelve Days of Christmas song. Watch carefully and you might spot in the background the picture he keeps of himself that ages in his place.
The second annual Royal Statistical Society ‘statistics of the year’ have been announced. The Guardian reports that these include top prize for “90.5%, the proportion of plastic waste that has never been recycled”, and that other statistics awarded or commended involve Jaffa Cakes, poverty, gender equality, climate change and someone called Kylie Jenner. The RSS says “the Statistics of the Year aim to show the sometimes surprising stories that numbers can tell us about the world”.
Statistic of the year from the RSS.
Environment, Jaffa Cakes and Kylie Jenner star in statistics of year, at The Guardian.