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.
Since it’s Christmas (more or less), let’s treat ourselves to a colourful @solvemymaths puzzle: Have a go, if you’d like to! Below the line will be spoilers. Consistency The first and most obvious thing to ask is, is Ed’s claim reasonable? At a glance, yes, it makes sense: …
Dear Uncle Colin, How do I verify the identity $\frac{\cos(\theta)}{1 - \sin(\theta)} \equiv \tan(\theta) + \sec(\theta)$ for $\cos(\theta) \ne 0$? - Struggles Expressing Cosines As Nice Tangents Hi, SECANT, and thanks for your message! The key questions for just about any trigonometry proof are …
Midway through the second half of You Can’t Polish A Nerd, Steve Mould neatly encapsulates the show in one line: “It creates images on your oscilloscope. It’s so cool!” Because of course you have an oscilloscope. And of course you would use it - or failing that, a balloon and a laser to reproduce …
Dear Uncle Colin, How would you factorise $63x^2 + 32x - 63$? I tried the method where you multiply $a$ and $c$ (it gives you -3969) - but I’m not sure how to find factors of that that sum to 32! Factors Are Troublesomely Oversized, Urgh Hi, FATOU, and thanks for your message! When the numbers …
In this month’s episode of Wrong, But Useful, we’re joined by @ch_nira, who is Dr Nira Chamberlain in real life - and the World’s Most Interesting Mathematician. Nira is a professional mathematical modeller, president-designate of the IMA, and a visiting fellow at Loughborough university. We discuss …
I don’t remember doing it - although I’d meant to for some time - but apparently I signed up for the British Bone Marrow Registry. (If you’re between 17 and 40, you can sign up the next time you give blood; the more people on the register, the more likely it is for people who need …
Dear Uncle Colin, I have to show that \(-\frac{x}{2} = \ln (\sqrt{1+e^x} - \sqrt{e^x }) + \ln (\sqrt{1+e^{-x}} + 1)\). I can’t get it anywhere near the right form! - Proof Of It Not Coming - Any Reasonable Explanation? Hi, POINCARE, and thanks for your message! That’s a bit of a mess - …
“Three teas, please,” said the passenger ahead of me in the queue. The Armorique was due in Plymouth any minute, and tea was of the essence. “That’s £4.65, or €5.601.” Hang on a moment, I thought, remembering to order my own tea as well. 560 isn’t a multiple of 3. …
Dear Uncle Colin, I’m told that \(x\sqrt{x} - 5\sqrt{x} = 2\) and I have to find \(x - 2\sqrt{x}\). Everything I try seems to make it worse! Any ideas? Mastering A Cubic - Help Is Needed Hi, MACHIN, and thanks for your message! At first glance, that’s a strange one. We can solve it, but …
An emergency blog post about chess, of which I know nothing. This is not meant as serious analysis; think of it more as “here are some topical maths ideas you can throw at your classes.” So, I looked up the Elo ratings for the chess world championship players: in rapid chess, champion Magnus Carlsen …
[powerpress] Since @reflectivemaths wasn’t at Big MathsJam and @samuelhansen was, the MathsJam Special is a bit different this year.
The student, at the third time of asking, navigated the perilous straits of negative powers and fractions of $\pi$ and came to rest, exhausted, on the answer: “$r^3 = \frac{500}{\pi}$,” he said. The Mathematical Ninja stopped poking him with the foam sword (going soft? perhaps. Or …
Dear Uncle Colin, As I progress through my maths education, I notice that the people around me are getting smarter and smarter. How do I keep my head up when everyone is brighter than me? I’m Mightily Put Off Seeing Their Outstanding Results Hi, IMPOSTOR, and thanks for your message! If …
It’s always Alice and Bob. Why must it always be Alice and Bob? In any case, the two of them are tossing coins Until they hit a particular sequence: Alice until she hits a head then a tail, Bob until he hits two heads in a row. Counter-intuitively, Alice will wait (on average) four tosses …
Dear Uncle Colin, Why is it called “completing the square”? To me, it looks like you’re taking something away from a square. - Some Quadratics, Understandably, Are Requiring Explanation Hi, SQUARE, and thanks for your message! Completing the square involves taking a quadratic such …
Some time ago, I recommended the mnemonic “LIATE” for integration by parts. Since you have a choice of which thing to integrate and which to differentiate, it makes little sense to pick something that’s hard to integrate as the thing to integrate. With that in mind, you would look …
Dear Uncle Colin, I struggled with a problem where you had 5 blue balls and x green balls, and the probability of picking two blue balls out of the bag was $\frac{5}{14}$. I can’t really see where to start! -Baffled About Likelihood, Lacking Startpoint Hi, BALLS, thanks for your message! This …
I gave a talk (some months ago now) on the history of $\pi$ (which is well discussed in my unreliable history of maths, Cracking Mathematics, available wherever good books are sold.) At one point, I put up a slide generally excoriating degrees as a measurement of angle, and stating that for small …
Dear Uncle Colin I just bought a new set square and noticed it had a couple of extra marks - one at seven degrees and one at 42 degrees. Have you any idea what those are for? - Don’t Recognise Extra Information Engraved on Calculus Kit Hi, DREIECK, and thank you for your message! I …
Normally when I call something a tasty puzzle, it’s a lame local-paper pun about it being to do with cakes or something. In this case, it’s not even that. Sorry to disappoint. Instead, it’s a puzzle that came to me via reddit: Find $\sum_{i=1}^{10} \frac{2}{4^{\frac{i}{11}}+2}$. …
Dear Uncle Colin, Why are there only five platonic solids? - Pentagons Look Awful. Try Octagons! Hi, PLATO, and thanks for your message! A platonic solid is a three-dimensional shape with the following rules: Each face is the same regular polygon The same number of edges meet at every vertex There …
In this month’s episode of Wrong, But Useful, we’re joined by @mscroggs, one of the editors of @chalkdustmag1. Colin has a bug and an article in Chalkdust Matt gives some insights into the editing process at the magazine Number of the podcast: 8 Black History Month: Matt refers to Episode 53, when …
When I was growing up, we had a game called Dingbats - it would offer a sort of graphical cryptic clue to a phrase and you’d have to figure out what the phrase was. For example: West Ham 4-1 Leicester City Chelsea 4-1 Man Utd Liverpool 4-1 Man City Everton 4-1 Newcastle Utd Sunderland 4-4 …
Dear Uncle Colin, I need to show that $\sqrt{7}$ is in $\mathbb{Q}[\sqrt{2}+\sqrt{3}+\sqrt{7}]$ and I don’t really know where to start. We Haven’t Approached Tackling Such Questions Hi, WHATSQ, and thanks for your message! I am absolutely not a number theorist, although I must admit to …
Working through an FP2 question on telescoping sums (one of my favourite topics - although FP2 is full of those), we determined that $r^2 = \frac{\br{2r+1}^3-\br{2r-1}^3-2}{24}$. Adding these up for $r=1$ to $r=n$ gave the fairly neat result that $24\sum_{r=1}^{n} r^2 = \br{2n+1}^3 - 1 - 2n$. Now, …
Dear Uncle Colin, I’m ok with my basic power laws, but I don’t understand why $x^0$ is always 1, and I get mixed up when it’s a fraction or a negative power. Can you help? Running Out Of Time Hi, ROOT, and thanks for your message! If it’s any consolation, you’re not …
Oh no! Your favourite mathematician has a birthday/Christmas/other present-giving occasion coming up and you don’t know what book to get them! They’ve already got Cracking Mathematics and The Maths Behind, obviously… so what can you give them this year? Fear not, dear reader. I am …
Integration by substitution, rigorously Dear Uncle Colin, Can you explain why integration by substitution works? I get that you’re not allowed to ‘cancel’ the $dx$s, but can’t see how it works otherwise. - Reasonable Interpretation Got Our Understanding Ridiculed Hi, RIGOUR, …
The student swam away, thinking almost as hard as he was swimming. The cube root of four? The square root was easy enough, he could do that in his sleep. But the cube root? OK. Breathe. It’s between 1 and 2, obviously. What’s 1.5 cubed? The Mathematical Ninja isn’t going to like …
Dear Uncle Colin, In a recent test, I was asked to differentiate $\frac{x^2+4}{\sqrt{x^2+4}}$. Obviously, my first thought was to simplify it to $\br{x^2+4}^{-\frac{1}{2}}$, but I’m not allowed to do that: only to use the quotient rule and the fact that $\diff {\sqrt{f(x)}}{x} = …