On meeting this adorable litter of ten Dalmation Puppies the other day, I quickly spotted (ahem) the need for Dogarithms – the canine equivalent of logarithms. The conversation with dog breeder Maxine went something like this:
Read the rest of this page »
Jane’s statement seem ridiculous – how can most people be better than average? Using some mathematical trickery, here’s how she could be logically correct.
Read the rest of this page »
Read the rest of this page »
Read the rest of this page »
Read the rest of this page »
Read the rest of this page »
Read the rest of this page »
A FUN EXAMPLE: suppose we want to sort these items into “things with exactly four legs” (Set A), and “the rest” (not in Set A):
John Venn, zebra, cat, octopus, tripod, chair.
One way to do this would be to split them into two lists, but a far prettier way is to arrange them into a Venn Diagram with one circle:
Read the rest of this page »
If you’re thinking about what he might mean by this, then it apparently means you exist – great news and congratulations!!
But the reason Descartes is my “hero of maths” for this month is because he also gives his name to CARTESIAN GEOMETRY – which is what you do when you plot the point (4,3) on a graph by going “along the corridor and up the stairs”. By the way, “Geometry” is a posh word for “Shapes”.
Read the rest of this page »
Every school child knows that a Hexagon is a flat shape with six straight sides, but here are six more great Hex- words to enjoy, together with instructions on how to make your own Hexahedra!
1) HEXADACTYLY: the condition of having six fingers (or toes) on one (or both) of your hands (or feet). King Henry VIII’s second wife Anne Boleyn was hexadactyl, meaning that you could count all six of Henry’s wives on the fingers of one of Anne’s gloves.
Read the rest of this page »