Pythagoras was weird!

Discovered this amusing little video from the wonderful ViHart this morning. Enjoy!

Classic Mathematical Joke

A mathematician finishes a large meal and says: √(-1/64)

Adam Richman from the TV show Man versus Food

Confused?

√-1 = i            and as we all know         √64 = 8

Hence, the mathematician actually said i/8 (I over ate).

To quote the late great Frank Carson "It's the way I tell 'em".

My extended "gardening leave" has meant that I have had to resort to playing Shut the Box with my cat Bagel. Unfortunately, much like some of my pupils, he gets bored easily and falls asleep!!



Shut the Box

National Pie Day

Today (23rd January) in America is National Pie Day. The American Pie Council created this day simply to celebrate the pie.

National Pie Day is a special day that is set aside to bake and cook all of your favorite pies. On this day, you are also encouraged to bake a few new pie recipes. And most importantly, it's a day to eat pies!

A great way to celebrate National Pie Day is to bake some pies and give them away to friends, neighbours, and relatives. You never know, you may be starting a tradition of pie giving between your friends and family.

Cherry Pi Pie

My favourite pie is Pi but this doesn't always quash my hunger pangs so my other top choice is cherry. What is your favourite?

What a beautiful baby!!

2012 is a leap year. The Revised Julian calendar adds an extra day to February in years divisible by four, except for years divisible by 100 that do not leave a remainder of 200 or 600 when divided by 900. This rule agrees with the rule for the Gregorian calendar until 2799. The first year that dates in the Revised Julian calendar will not agree with those in the Gregorian calendar will be 2800, because it will be a leap year in the Gregorian calendar but not in the Revised Julian calendar..

This rule gives an average year length of 365.242222… days. This is a very good approximation to the mean tropical year, but because the vernal equinox year is slightly longer, the Revised Julian calendar does not do as good a job as the Gregorian calendar of keeping the vernal equinox on or close to March 21. (See Wikipedia)

Given this information how old will the beautiful baby (yes it is me!!) in these pictures be on their next birthday if this picture was taken on 20th June 1959 and the baby was already 178 days old (not including day of birth). For accuracy you must give your answer in days.

Me, my Mum and my cousins

All these years later and I have the same haircut!

Happy Birthday Mark Twain

Today is Mark Twain's 176th Birthday. The famous American author of many classics such as Tom Sawyer and the Adventures of Hucklberry Finn also made some interesting comments on mathematics and learning;

"We could use up two Eternities in learning all that is to be learned about our own world and the thousands of nations that have arisen and flourished and vanished from it. Mathematics alone would occupy me eight million years."

"Get your facts first, and then you can distort them as much as you please."

"Few things are harder to put up with than a good example."

"Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines, sail away from the safe harbour, catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover."

Mark Twain (1835-1910)

Algebra Joke

Courtesy of @mathsinthecity

Halloween Humour

Q. What do you get if you divide the circumference of a jack-o-lantern by its diameter?

A. Pumpkin pie.

Happy Halloween. Joke courtesy of @MarcusduSautoy

This is incredibly funny if you remember that C = pi x D so, pi = C / D

I'll Be Back!

The news you have all been waiting for ... I'm back at work on Monday.

Happy Birthday

Today, Saturday 24th September, would have been Jim Henson's 75th Birthday. In honour of the creator of the Muppets and Sesame Street I bring you Count von Count!

The Count's main purpose is educating children on simple mathematical concepts, most notably counting. The Count has a love of counting (arithmomania); he will count anything and everything, regardless of size, amount, or how much annoyance he is causing the other Muppets or human cast.

The Count's favourite number is 34969 can you work out the prime factors of this number? Cookie Monster's favourite number is rumoured to be Pi. Is it possible to work out the prime factors of Pi? If so what are they, and if not why not?

Drunken elk rescued from Swede's apple tree

I just had to copy this story here as it is so f'ing hilarious and so like so many humans!! Online: Drunken Elk

So when you are getting in your taxi, please don't eat the fallen apples from the tree!

Toilets

Now who said maths teachers had boring holidays?!

Click on picture for more photos

Summertime is almost here .....

The Mathmagician

Here is a terrific video that shows how much fun maths can really be!!

Many more interesting and academic videos are available from TED via Youtube.