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Sunrises Impossible without Roosters: Studies Show!
Read more: Sunrises Impossible without Roosters: Studies Show!If you watch a lot of health related videos on YouTube, you may have heard claims such as: Since humans started eating x, the rate of metabolic disease has increased. X can be seed oils, processed meats, oats, or fruits. These are hypotheses that can be tested. The problem is when we assume that, if…
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Even professional mathematicians doubt themselves
Read more: Even professional mathematicians doubt themselvesA fortnight ago, four mathematicians were awarded the Fields Medal, arguably mathematics’ highest honour. The medal is awarded every four years to four mathematicians under the age of 40. In this post, I want to talk about one of them: Hong Wang The beginnings Wang was born in 1991, in the Guangxi region of China.…
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Don’t trust your intuition, part 5: The Potato Paradox
Read more: Don’t trust your intuition, part 5: The Potato ParadoxThe potato paradox is a simple question: You have 1 Kg of potato. 99% of the mass of the potato is water. You leave it out to dehydrate until it is 98% water. How much do the potatoes weigh now? Make a guess and keep it in mind as we explore this question. The answer…
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Don’t trust your intuition part 4: The bat and ball puzzle
Read more: Don’t trust your intuition part 4: The bat and ball puzzleThe bat and ball puzzle is almost everywhere and you may well have seen it: Please answer this question before you read on. Your first guess This puzzle has been given to many university students and the majority answer: “The ball costs 10 cents.” Unfortunately, this is incorrect! This is an illustration of what Nobel…
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What’s the Difference?
Read more: What’s the Difference?This post departs from the pattern of presenting an interesting concept from number theory or presenting a solution to a classic problem. We will look at a basic concept and at understanding it in a way that makes some daily mathematical tasks simpler. The concept is difference or the result of subtracting one number from…
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The handshake problem: Couples edition!
Read more: The handshake problem: Couples edition!We have already seen the classical form of the handshake problem, where we asked: If there were 10 people at a party and every person were to shake hands with every other person exactly once, how many handshakes would there be in total? In this post, we will solve the problem but with people arriving…
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Never divide by zero!
Read more: Never divide by zero!You may have heard that division by zero is not allowed. In fact, if you try to divide any number by zero on a calculator, you will get a version of “undefined”. This post will show why this is the case and relate one maritime mishap that happened as a result of an attempt to…
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The Easter Bunny Needs Your Help
Read more: The Easter Bunny Needs Your HelpThe Easter Bunny is very polite. He isn’t one to enter people’s homes through roof cavities in the middle of the night! Instead, he knocks on the front door during daytime. Often, this involves climbing up a set of stairs to get to the front porch. The Easter Bunny can hop either 1 or 2…
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Prime numbers: Fascinating to mathematicians, life-saving for cicadas!
Read more: Prime numbers: Fascinating to mathematicians, life-saving for cicadas!What are prime numbers? Prime numbers are the building blocks of all other numbers. They have distinctive qualities that mathematicians get excited about. In this post, we will see what prime numbers are and discuss how cicadas exploit them to avoid predators and thrive! Having seen factors in a previous post, we can define a…
Numbers for Words people is a blog that explains mathematics in plain language. The aim is to show the beauty of mathematics from first principles. For regular updates, subscribe by typing your email address in the box at the top of the page.