The Flying Colours Maths blog has been running posts twice weekly since 2012, covering maths from the basics to… well, the most advanced stuff I have a clue about.
Here they all are, sorted by date. Some day, other ways to filter them will be possible.
What are they? A Sophie Germain prime is a prime such that $2p+1$ is also prime - for example, 23 is a Sophie Germain prime since 47 is also prime. The largest known Sophie Germain prime has close to 400,000 digits; it is conjectured that there are infinitely many such primes, although this has not …
Dear Uncle Colin How would you prove that $\cos(2x) > 1 - 2x^2$ for $x > 0$? - Can’t Obviously See It, Need Explanation Hi, COSINE, and thanks for your message! I’d start by noting that as soon as $x > 1$, the right hand side is smaller than -1, which is clearly smaller than $\cos(2x)$ - so …
I grew up with Countdown as part of my diet. I had a crush on Carol Vorderman (before she went all advertisey and weird). I loved the numbers game, obviously – although I still have some slight resentment that Ian Scarrott was class champion rather than me. A few years back, I implemented a numbers …
Dear Uncle Colin, My six siblings and I have inherited a fortune of £$10^{10} + 10^{(10^2)} + \dots 10^{(10^{10})}$, to be divided evenly between us. However, we’re a very squabbly family, so we want to know how much money will be left over once it’s divided up. Can you help? - Remaining Inheriting …
“I beg your pardon?!” yelled the Mathematical Ninja. The terribly well-dressed gentleman stood his ground. “I said, sensei, I would work $0.8^{10}$ out differently.” A sarcastic laugh. “This, I have to see!” “Well, $8^{10} = 2^{30}$, which is about $10^{9}$.” “About.” “Obviously, we can do better …
In this month’s thrilling installment of Wrong, But Useful, we’re joined by @c_j_smith, who is Calvin Smith in real life. We discuss… Number of the Podcast: 5 Are Fish and Chip shop owners good at maths? Two maths puns and a maths joke Are there ‘popular’ books that ‘lead you in’ to mechanics? An …
Dear Uncle Colin, Can there be two or more consecutive irrational numbers? - Between A Number And Consecutive… Huh? Hi, BANACH, and thanks for your message! We… have a problem here. When you’re dealing with integers, consecutive is really neatly defined: every number has a single successor, a number …
One of the many lovely things about Big MathsJam is that I’ve found My People - I’ve made several very dear friends there, introduced others to the circle, and get to stay in touch with other maths fans through the year. It’s golden. Adam Atkinson is one of those dear friends, and one of the ways he …
Dear Uncle Colin, I’m given that $0 \le x \lt 180^o$, and that $\cos(x) + \sin(x) = \frac{1}{2}$. I have to find $p$ and $q$ such that $\tan(x) = -\frac{p + \sqrt{q}}{3}$. Where do I even start? - Some Identity Needing Evaluation Hi, SINE, and thanks for your message! There are three approaches that …
So far in the Dictionary of Mathematical Eponymy, I’ve not picked anyone properly famous. I mean, if you’re a keen recreational mathematician, you’ll have heard of Collatz or Banach; a serious mathematician might know about Daubechies, and a chess enthusiast would conceivably have come across Elo. …
Dear Uncle Colin, I’m told that $5\times 2^x + 1$ (with $x$ a non-negative integer) is a square number - how do I find $x$? - A Baffling Equation. Logs? Hi, ABEL, and thanks for your message! We’re looking for a square number - let’s call it $y^2$ - that’s one more than five times a power of 2. …
Aaaages ago, @vingaints tweeted: This is pretty wild. It feels like what the Basis Representation Theorem is for Integers but for Rational Numbers. Hmm - trying to prove it now. Feels like a tough one. Need to work some examples! https://t.co/tgcy8iaXHa pic.twitter.com/tgcy8iaXHa — Ving Aints …
Dear Uncle Colin, Suppose Team 1 beats Team 2 by a score of 10-7, and Team 2 beats Team 3 by a score of 10-4. How would we predict the score of a match between Team 1 and Team 3? - Make A Team Calculation Happen Hi, MATCH, and thanks for your message! I don’t have any information about what sport …
“That looks straightforward,” I thought. “I’ll keep on looking at this geometry puzzle.” Nut-uh. A standard pack of 52 cards is shuffled. The cards are turned over one at a time, and you guess whether each will be red or black. How many correct guesses do you expect to make? I’m going to present a …
In this month’s Wrong, But Useful, we’re joined by @sheena2907, who is Sheena in real life. We discuss: Sheena’s Number of the Podcast: 3,212 Board Games - Number Fluxx, Prime Climb Magic: The Gathering is undecidable! Oxbridge Time surprises The oddness of the Fibonacci sequence …
Dear Uncle Colin, How would you work out $\br{\frac{4}{5}}^{10}$ in your head? - Probability Estimation Needed, Relic Of Slide-rule Era Hi, PENROSE, and thanks for your message! That’s really two questions: how I would do it, and how the Mathematical Ninja would do it. Me Me, I’d probably use the …
Like everyone else on Twitter, I’m a sucker for a nice-looking question, and @cshearer41 is a reliable source of such things. I particularly liked this one: Straight in with the instinct “OBVIOUSLY 12.” It jumped out at me that the side of the larger triangle was double the smaller one. It’s a …
Dear Uncle Colin, How would you work out something like $(-1)^\pi$? Doesn’t Everyone Miss Out Irrational Values Reckoning Exponents? Hi, DEMOIVRE, and thanks for your message! In the words of the politician: difficult, difficult, lemon difficult. One the one hand there is one answer that seems …
As I write this, classical chess’s top two players are Magnus Carlsen of Norway (rated 2835) and the USA’s Fabiano Caruana, who has a rating of 2832. Very close! But what do the rankings mean? FIDE1 uses the Elo rating system, a methodical - and mathematical - system for distilling results into a …
Dear Uncle Colin, In a culture where people have children until they have a daughter and then stop, what proportion will be daughters? * Families Retain Extra Girls Evidently Hi, FREGE, and thanks for your message1 ! Spoiler alert: it’s a half. There are several ways to see this, and I’ll show you …
An exam question was recently brought to my attention: students were asked to estimate $31.28^2$. Whoosh “$31^2 = 961$ and $31.5^2 = 992.25$, so it’s about 978.” “Very good, sensei, but no marks. Uhuhuh, put that down - you need to take it up with the exam board, not with me.” A narrowing of the …
Dear Uncle Colin, I have the polar equation $\theta = k$, and I want to turn it into rectangular coordinates. I worked it out to be the line $y = x \tan(k)$, but the solution says it’s only a half-line. Why is that? Perplexed Over Line And Radius Hi, POLAR, and thanks for your message! This one has …
In this month’s episode of Wrong, But Useful, we’re joined by @cshearer41, who is Catriona Shearer in real life. We discuss: LaTeX (time to fight again) Mathematical sign language More interesting ‘bad graphs’ than the obvious howlers you usually see on the internet. Via @peterrowlett: Some people …
It took the Mathematical Ninja a little longer than normal; the student had managed to rummage around in her bag and lay a finger on the calculator before simultaneously feeling her arm pulled away by a lasso and hearing “0.3805. Or, as a one-off, since the question is asking for degrees, …
Dear Uncle Colin, I’m told a six-digit number, ABC,DEF1, is a perfect square such that DEF is 8 times ABC. How do I find this number? - Very Interesting, Except That Eight Hello, VIETE, and thanks for your message! This is as much of a typographical challenge as it is a mathematical one. So, there …
As a progressively more adamant Europhile, I was pleased to learn that the UK would take part in next month’s European Parliament elections1. As an amateur psephologist, I was delighted. Rather glibly, I responded to someone asking whether one needed to vote tactictally in these elections by saying …
Dear Uncle Colin I’m organising a tournament with 16 teams, and wanted to arrange it in five stages, each consisting of four groups of four teams. However, I found that after three rounds, it wasn’t possible to find any groups without making teams play each other again! Why is that? Dumb Rematches …
At a recent East Dorset Mathsjam , the puzzle of two heads resurfaced: if you repeatedly flip a fair coin, how long (on average) do you have to wait until you get two heads in a row? Two fine answers are available here. However, the estimable Barney Maunder-Taylor went down a different track, noting …
Dear Uncle Colin, I have to solve $5^x = 6 - 5^{1-x}$ - I understand it’s going to end up as a quadratic, but I can’t see how! - Explain, Uncle Colin, Like I Demand! Hi, EUCLID and thanks for your message! The key thing here is to spot that you can split up the last term as either $5 \times 5^{-x}$ …
Before I dive in to Daubechies wavelets, a confession: at university, Fourier series were the bane of my existence. I could do them, under duress, but in the same way as I set up the audio for Wrong, But Useful1: I had a recipe of steps I needed to follow, and no understanding or desire to …