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8 votes
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An aperiodic monotile exists!
21 votes -
The story behind the Packing Chromatic paper
5 votes -
Once a millennium alignment of all three norths
5 votes -
How do fireflies flash in sync? Studies suggest a new answer.
3 votes -
Why are quintic equations not solvable? - the Galois theory approach
3 votes -
Penrose Unilluminable Room is a room with mirrored walls that can't be fully illuminated by a single point source of light
3 votes -
The hyperbolic geometry of DMT experiences
7 votes -
Repulsive Curves
4 votes -
Why everyone ignored the world's best mathematician
4 votes -
A mathematician explains what Foundation gets right about predicting the future
5 votes -
How do I calculate my family's "average family location"?
So, I just listened to a This American Life podcast called Ghost in the Machine. In one of the stories, a man decides to calculate, every week, the Average Family Location of his family. By that,...
So, I just listened to a This American Life podcast called Ghost in the Machine. In one of the stories, a man decides to calculate, every week, the Average Family Location of his family. By that, he means: once you add everyone's coordinates for every coordinate in which they've been in that period, what city/location represents the average point between them all?
I decided to do the same for my family, which will be much easier because there are no touring musicians among us. The one complication is that a good chunk of the family is on other continents, and I wouldn't want us to "meet" in the middle of the ocean. So some approximation might be warranted.
I'd be happy if someone could provide me the math, I'm fairly confident I would be able to do it with a calculator or maybe put into some crude Python. I don't think I need to make a weekly report, since we're not that mobile. Maybe twice a year, or once every two months.
Thanks!
Edit: I don't know much math
Edit2: holy shit this is not simple at all! Now I feel kinda bad for throwing this problem at you guys. I really thought it would be quick and easy!
9 votes -
I need cool facts about huge numbers
So, my 5-year-old nephew is obsessed with huge numbers, especially named numbers such as googol, duodecillion, and centillion. The other day I spent some time reciting these numbers to him, and...
So, my 5-year-old nephew is obsessed with huge numbers, especially named numbers such as googol, duodecillion, and centillion. The other day I spent some time reciting these numbers to him, and trying (and failing) to describe them. What I need are some cool facts about these numbers, such as "there are 1 quadrillion cat hairs in the world", or "there are not enough stars in the universe to fill one googol".
Besides math, his main interests are super-heroes and, apparently, cars.
I'm not a math or physics guy, so hopefully you guys can help me cheat :P
12 votes -
Bertrand's Paradox (with 3blue1brown)
1 vote -
Alice, Bob, and the average shadow of a cube
4 votes -
Hiding images in plain sight: the physics of magic windows
5 votes -
Lehmer Factor Stencils: A paper factoring machine before computers
2 votes -
Analytic Number Theory book club ending today
3 votes -
Our next trip to integer partitions
2 votes -
Our trip to the prime number theorem
9 votes -
Could you avoid being hit by a laser if you were in a room of mirrors?
2 votes -
Squaring primes: Why all prime numbers >3 squared are one off a multiple of 24
10 votes -
The simplest math problem no one can solve
10 votes -
Three months in Monte Carlo
4 votes -
I need help with a story that involves math
I'm creating the concept for a story called The Little Differences. It's about an accountant that, one day, out of the blue, notices that a certain calculation is producing a slightly wrong...
I'm creating the concept for a story called The Little Differences. It's about an accountant that, one day, out of the blue, notices that a certain calculation is producing a slightly wrong result. Barely noticeable, nothing world-changing,
He runs it on the computer, tries different software, a physical calculator... everything gives a result that's a little off. When he checks on paper himself, he gets the correct result. But, to his surprise, everyone else tells him that he's the one that's off, and that the incorrect result is actually perfectly sound.
I need something that makes sense, mathematically. The weird result must be something that really is wrong, and not just something that programs sometimes get wrong (I don't want it to be explained at all... I mean, the reason why it is occurring must not be something easily reducible to some well-known malfunction). But it must also be minor enough for someone to miss, something that wouldn't really cause much trouble in the real world (is that possible? IDK).
Lastly: it must be something that I'm able to explain (on some level) to a non-math reader.
So, Tildes math wizzes, what you suggest? :D
17 votes -
Before you answer, consider the opposite possibility
8 votes -
The unparalleled genius of John von Neumann
13 votes -
How the slowest computer programs illuminate math’s fundamental limits
8 votes -
Imaginary numbers may be essential for describing reality
5 votes -
Sounds of the Mandelbrot set
8 votes -
You could have invented Homology, part 1
6 votes -
A picture of Graham's Number
6 votes -
Calculus explained and illustrated
6 votes -
Understanding hyperbolic geometry by illuminating it
3 votes -
The universal geometry of geology
10 votes -
Proving that 1=2, Bob Ross style
6 votes -
Decoding the mathematical secrets of plants’ stunning leaf patterns
6 votes -
Why do Biden's votes not follow Benford's Law? Debunking an election fraud claim
24 votes -
The art of code - Dylan Beattie
7 votes -
Neutrinos lead to unexpected discovery in basic math
11 votes -
The complete idiot’s guide to the independence of the Continuum Hypothesis: part 1
9 votes -
How eugenics shaped statistics
9 votes -
Measuring the size of the Earth
3 votes -
How storytellers use math (without scaring people away)
4 votes -
What is math? A teenager asked that age-old question on TikTok, creating a viral backlash, and then, a thoughtful scientific debate
12 votes -
I learned how to do math with the ancient abacus — and it changed my life
9 votes -
A math problem stumped experts for fifty years. This grad student from Maine solved it in days
19 votes -
There are forty-eight regular polyhedra
8 votes -
Terry Tao on what makes good mathematical notation
4 votes -
Division by zero in type theory: a FAQ
4 votes