Showing posts with label math. Show all posts
Showing posts with label math. Show all posts
Saturday, February 8, 2014
Tupper's Self-Referential Formula
I read about this function a while ago, but I had no idea how it was derived. This is a great explanation of how it works.
Tuesday, March 3, 2009
Greed + Mis-use of Math = Global Financial Disaster
Apparently, a lot of our recent global financial collapse comes from a mix of greed and people mis-using a simplified risk assessment formula. The guy who came up with the formula warned people that they didn't understand the formula....
Monday, February 11, 2008
A Silly Math Joke
Whoever first noticed this was pretty observant....
Q: Why do mathematicians often confuse Christmas and Halloween?
A: Because Oct 31 = Dec 25.
In case you don't get it, "Oct" refers to octal numbers and "Dec" refers to decimal numbers. Octal numbers are base 8, which means that as you count up, you carry to the next digit on 8, whereas decimal numbers are the ones that we're all used to where you carry to the next digit on 10. The first 10 positive octal numbers run: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 10, 11, 12. This is just a neat coincidence that 31 in octal works out to be 25 in decimal.
Q: Why do mathematicians often confuse Christmas and Halloween?
A: Because Oct 31 = Dec 25.
In case you don't get it, "Oct" refers to octal numbers and "Dec" refers to decimal numbers. Octal numbers are base 8, which means that as you count up, you carry to the next digit on 8, whereas decimal numbers are the ones that we're all used to where you carry to the next digit on 10. The first 10 positive octal numbers run: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 10, 11, 12. This is just a neat coincidence that 31 in octal works out to be 25 in decimal.
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