Statistically correct love song

By akie

In honour of yesterday’s Valentine day: Tim Minchin’s “If I didn’t have you”. A cynical, statistically correct love song. The engineer in me appreciates this

(YouTube)

Lyrics:
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Escher-esque photography

By akie

I really how Sébastien Pérez-Duarte applies math to photography. The results remind me of Escher.

More on his homepage and his Flickr-page, including this how-to.

Polyhedron made of cards

By akie

Via BoingBoing

Pie chart

By akie

Via reddit.

The math grenade

By akie

Behold the Curta calculator, the most popular analogue pocket calculator in its day, originally designed in a concentration camp as a present for the Führer.

^{Image credit: Rick Furr}

Here’s a movie on how it works:

More on Dark Roasted Blend, or try one yourself with this online simulator.

40 digits of pi

By akie

You only need 40 digits of pi to calculate the number of atoms in a circle the size of the entire universe:

Why? Consider this:

• Atoms are about 10^-11 meters across
• The universe is about 90 billion light years (10²⁷ meters) wide

Dividing it out, it takes about 10³⁷ atoms to span the universe. So, around 40 digits of pi would be enough for an exact count of atoms needed to surround the universe. Were you planning on building something larger than the universe and precise to an atomic level? (If so, where would you put it?)

And that’s just 40 digits of precision; 80 digits covers us in case there’s a mini-universe inside each of our atoms, and 120 digits in case there’s another mini-universe inside of that one.

Link

“I will derive”

By akie

Oh boy, a nerd adaptation of Gloria Gaynor’s classic “I will survive”! Hilarious.

Link to YouTube.

“How I Built a Working Poker Bot”

By akie

Someone has written a working poker bot, and has decided to tell how to build one yourself. Below is a screenshot of what must be the strategy editor.

Apparently he’s using a rule based expert system, which is a logical choice (imho) given the problem at hand. In the comments I found a link about breaking the random number generator in online poker, which makes the outcome of any poker hand completely predictable. Fascinating stuff.

“Deal or no deal” - the math behind the TV show

By akie

I found this rather nice write-up of the math behind the TV show “Deal or no deal” (play it online). I don’t know if there’s a proper mathematical formula or method to describe the bidding, but it seems to resemble the bidding in No Limit Texas Hold’em. Interesting!

Braess’s paradox

By akie

Dietrich Braess figured out that sometimes, adding or building a road can actually hurt traffic. Wikipedia explains how this is even possible.

Clint tells it like it is

By akie

Found on Miss Cellania. Click to enlarge.