SUMMARY: This morning, we learn how to count like the ancient Babylonians (oh, and we learn about the number 60, too)! I’ve often wondered why there are sixty seconds in a minute and sixty minutes in an hour when really, we can define these units of time in any way we wish. So why don’t we instead have 100 seconds in a minute and 100 minutes in an hour? That certainly seems more metric. ... Read more
SUMMARY: What happens when a numberphile plays with prime numbers? Today’s video answers that vital question that I know has been burning in the back of your mind: What happens when two numberphiles play with prime numbers? ... Read more
SUMMARY: An interesting group participation project for the Manchester Science Festival: growing sunflowers! Screengrab. Today’s video is a good beginning for a Monday morning in spring. It tells you a little about Fibonacci numbers in nature, a subject that Alan Turing was studying before he died. This video also tells you about an interesting “citizen science project” being held by the upcoming Manchester Science Festival that you can participate in: growing sunflowers! ... Read more
SUMMARY: One of the most important numbers is irrational Screengrab. π has fascinated mathematicians, engineers and other people for centuries. It is a mathematical constant that is the ratio of a circle’s circumference (C) to its diameter (d); ... Read more
SUMMARY: Beyond being the meaning of life in nerd culture, 42 has a number of properties that really are interesting Are you a numberphile who also loves Douglas Adams? If so, then you probably already know where this is going … In this week’s amusing video, we learn about all the quirky traits of the number 42. It was writer Douglas Adams who made this number famous in his book, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, as being the “Answer... Read more
SUMMARY: There has been some internet buzz recently about 998001, so Numberphile sheds some light on matters Screengrab. “Everything old is new again.” ~Peter Allen (1944-1992). What is so special about the number 998001? If you divide 1 by 998001, you will get every three digit number from 001 to 999, in its correct sequence, except 998. At first glance, this looks really remarkable, doesn’t it? If I told you that the numbers 9801 also shows this property but for... Read more
SUMMARY: What do narcissistic numbers and happy numbers share with the wild events that transpire when mathematicians visit the pub? Last week, I showed you a short video that discusses happy numbers, a concept that ties in with an earlier video I shared about narcissistic numbers. But what do these concepts have to do with what mathematicians do when they visit the pub? ... Read more
SUMMARY: People can be happy or sad, but can numbers be happy or sad? Image: D Sharon Pruitt (creative commons). It’s a rather gloomy morning today, so I thought I’d lighten things up by showing you a video about happy numbers. Happy numbers? you ask. What is a happy number? How can a number be happy? Are there sad numbers too? ... Read more
SUMMARY: And no, I am not talking about Google (originally, a spelling error) nor GooglePlus (a social media error) Image: Ross A Hall/creative commons. This video is full of fun geekiness, where physicists and mathematicians talk about “really big numbers”. How big are these “really big numbers”? How about the number 10100, which translates into 1 followed by 100 zeros? The shorthand name for that number is a Googol. Oh, maybe that number isn’t big enough for you then? How... Read more
SUMMARY: 17 is the minimum number of clues required to give a unique sudoku solution — but how did mathematicians prove this? For those who aren’t familiar with it, sudoku is a popular logic-based puzzle where numbers are placed into a 9×9 grid so that each column, each row, and each of the nine 3×3 sub-grids contain just one of the digits between 1 and 9. Sudoku has been around for a long time but was popularised by the Japanese... Read more
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