The Official MathGeek Blog

Celebrate Pi Day!

How to Celebrate Pi Day: "Pi Day is a special day in the lives of many a nerd. Just like normal people celebrate Valentine's Day or National Pancake Day, nerds around the world will gather and join hands in the shape whose ratio of its circumference to its diameter is the most revered mathematical constant in the known universe. Below are some tips on making this day (celebrated on March 14 at 1:59pm) memorable to one and all."  More...

From Wikipedia:  "Pi Day and Pi Approximation Day are two unofficial holidays held to celebrate the mathematical constant π (pi). Pi Day is observed on March 14 (3/14 in American date format), due to π being equal to roughly 3.14. Sometimes it is celebrated on March 14 at 1:59 p.m. (commonly known as Pi Minute). If π is truncated to seven decimal places, it becomes 3.1415926, making March 14 at 1:59:26 p.m., Pi Second. Pi Approximation Day may be observed on any of several dates, most often July 22 (22/7 (European date format) is a popular approximation of π). March 14 also happens to be Albert Einstein's birthday." More...

See also: PiDay.org

'Mathlete' smashes human calculation record

LONDON (AFP) - The world's fastest human calculator on Tuesday broke his own record for working out a 200-digit number using nothing but brain power to produce the answer in just over 70 seconds. ADVERTISEMENT Alexis Lemaire, a 27-year-old Frenchman, correctly calculated the 13th root of a random 200-digit number from a possible 393 trillion answers. The so-called 'mathlete' produced the answer of 2,407,899,893,032,210 in 70.2 seconds, beating his previous record of 72.4 seconds, at London's Science Museum. A computer was used to produce a random 200-digit number before he sat down to calculate the answer in his head. The museum's curator of mathematics, Jane Wess, said: "He sat down and it was all very quiet -- and all of a sudden he amazingly just cracked it. "I believe that it is the highest sum calculated mentally. "He seems to have a large memory and he's made this his life's ambition. It's quite remarkable to see it happen. A very small number of people have this extraordinary ability; nowadays there is only a handful." Lemaire, who attends the University of Reims in northern France, began demonstrating his prowess by finding the 13th root of a random 100-digit number but gave up trying to improve his performance when he calculated an answer in under four seconds in 2004. Like an athlete, he trains his brain daily for the far harder task of finding the 13th root of 200-digit numbers.

Gift Geek Wrap

The Science of Wrapping: Bluewater reveals the formula to prevent wrapping wastage this Christmas

To ensure its customers have a green Christmas this season, Bluewater have devised an eco-friendly scientific formula on how to wrap a Christmas present after estimating British consumers will waste over one tonne^* of wrapping paper this Christmas.

Bluewater, the UKs leading shopping centre, discovered that Brits continually overestimate the amount of paper they need to wrap their Christmas presents. Following this new revelation, Bluewater today reveals the mathematical solution which will hopefully put an end to unnecessary paper wastage: A1 = 2(ab+ac+bc+c²)^**

In laymans’ terms, the length of the wrapping paper should be as long as the perimeter of the side of the gift, with no more than 2cm allowed for an overlap. The width should be just a little over the sum of the width and the depth of the gift. More...

05-06-07

Numerologists: Your moment is about to arrive. Mathematicians and lottery players: You may want to pay attention, too. On Sunday, at 02:03:04 a.m. on 05/06/07, time will align itself in a perfect pattern, 2-3-4-5-6-7.

For those who slept though last year's 1-2-3-4-5-6 moment at 1:02 a.m. and three seconds on April, 5, 2006, this is your second chance.

"There are numerical patterns in nature all around us," says Edward Burger, who teaches mathematics at Williams College in Williamstown, Mass. "Some are more significant and some are more beautiful than others. And this one is a silly one."

Silly, yes. And a moment that will not come again for another century, in 2107. Of course, the times and dates will align sequentially once every year until 9:10 and 11 seconds on Dec. 13, 2014, or 9-10-11-12-13-14. After that, time will revert to its usual untidy mix of hours, minutes and seconds passing through the days of our lives. More...

Mathematica 6

Building on two decades of world-class algorithm and software development, Mathematica 6 represents a dramatic breakthrough that immensely broadens Mathematica's scope and applicability—and redefines the very way we think about computation. Made possible by Mathematica's unique symbolic architecture, Mathematica 6 introduces a sweeping unification of language and interface concepts that makes possible a new level of automation in algorithmic computation, interactive manipulation and dynamic presentation—as well as a whole new way of interacting with the world of data. More...

Click here for the new Mathematica 6 Demonstration Site.

But Do I Get Partial Credit?

A £2 billion project to answer some of the biggest mysteries of the universe has been delayed by months after scientists building it made basic errors in their mathematical calculations.

The mistakes led to an explosion deep in the tunnel at the Cern particle accelerator complex near Geneva in Switzerland. It lifted a 20-ton magnet off its mountings, filling a tunnel with helium gas and forcing an evacuation.

It means that 24 magnets located all around the 17-mile circular accelerator must now be stripped down and repaired or upgraded. The failure is a huge embarrassment for Fermilab, the American national physics laboratory that built the magnets and the anchor system that secured them to the machine.

It appears Fermilab made elementary mistakes in the design of the magnets and their anchors that made them insecure once the system was operational.

Last week an apparently furious and embarrassed Pier Oddone, director of Fermilab, wrote to his staff saying they had caused “a pratfall on the world stage”. He said: “We are dumb-founded that we missed some very simple balance of forces. Not only was it missed in the engineering design but also in the four engineering reviews carried out between 1998 and 2002 before launching the construction of the magnets.” More...

HP contest: Why I love my calculator

SAN FRANCISCO - Obsessing over pocket calculators might not be the hippest hobby for today's online generation, but Hewlett-Packard is hoping a quirky contest will draw out their bravest fans.

The Palo Alto-based company is marking its 35th year in the handheld calculator business by encouraging the gadget's most devoted fans to submit short YouTube-style documentary films conveying their affinity for the devices.

Eight finalists will win a trip to Hollywood this summer for the HP Golden Calculator Awards ceremony, and the audience favorite wins a $3,000 high-definition plasma television set.

Analysts said the campaign is part of a growing trend among large companies to incorporate user-generated content into advertisements, turning a small, influential group of customers into an army of trusted and often-unpaid marketers.

Emily Riley, an advertising analyst with Jupiter Research, said HP is trying to tap into a younger audience by having a little fun with the campaign, but has to be careful about alienating some fans or sending the wrong message about the brand if it's not embraced by true enthusiasts.

"By poking fun at their biggest fans, they are poking fun at themselves," she said. "It's almost hip to be smart these days, especially online. They're hoping to look a little hipper, a little more in the know about where their future consumers are today."

Be There or Be Square

"This is a story about love. About inscrutable complexity and remarkable simplicity, about the promise of forever. It is about obsession and devotion, and grand gestures and 4,000-word love letters.

It is about a curious group of people with an almost religious zeal for a mind-numbing string of numbers. Actually one number, made up of a chain that is known so far to be more than one trillion digits long. They are the acolytes of the church of pi.

And once a year many of them gather to talk about pi, rhapsodize about it, eat pi-themed foods (actual pie, sure, but so much more), have pi recitation contests and, just maybe, feel a little less sheepish about their unusual passion.

That day falls on Wednesday this year: March 14. Or 3.14. Obviously."  More...

Paul Halmos

Paul R. Halmos (1916-2006), a major figure in twentieth century mathematics, died on October 2 in Los Gatos, California. Of Hungarian descent, he came to the United States at age 13. He entered the University of Illinois at 16, and received his doctorate when he was 22. Upon receiving his PhD he spent two years at the Institute for Advanced Study as an assistant to John von Neumann. Over the course of his career he held positions at the University of Chicago, University of Michigan, Indiana University, the University of California, Santa Barbara, the University of Hawaii, and Santa Clara University.

Professor Halmos was a famed author, editor, teacher, and speaker of distinction. Nearly all of his many books are still in print. His Finite Dimensional Vector Spaces, Naive Set Theory, Measure Theory, Problems for Mathematicians Young and Old, and I Want to be a Mathematician are classic books that reflect his clarity, conciseness, and color. He edited the American Mathematical Monthly from 1981-1985, and served for many years as one of the editors of the Springer-Verlag series Undergraduate Texts in Mathematics and Graduate Texts in Mathematics.  More...