Stacking cannonballs – solving maths with code Numberphile have recently done a video looking at the maths behind stacking cannonballs – so in this post I’ll look at the code needed to solve this problem. Triangular based pyramid. A triangular based pyramid would have: 1 ball on the top layer 1 + 3 balls on […]
Plotting the Mandelbrot Set The video above gives a fantastic account of how we can use technology to generate the Mandelbrot Set – one of the most impressive mathematical structures you can imagine. The Mandelbrot Set can be thought of as an infinitely large picture – which contains fractal patterns no matter how far you […]
What’s so special about 277777788888899? Numberphile have just done a nice video which combines mathematics and computer programing. The challenge is to choose any number (say 347) Then we do 3x4x7 = 84 next we do 8×4 = 32 next we do 3×2 = 6. And when we get to a single digit number then […]
Normal Numbers – and random number generators Numberphile have a nice new video where Matt Parker discusses all different types of numbers – including “normal numbers”. Normal numbers are defined as irrational numbers for which the probability of choosing any given 1 digit number is the same, the probability of choosing any given 2 digit […]
Crack the Beale Papers and find a $65 Million buried treasure? The story of a priceless buried treasure of gold, silver and jewels (worth around $65 million in today’s money) began in January 1822. A stranger by the name of Thomas Beale walked into the Washington Hotel Virginia with a locked iron box, which he gave […]
Volume optimization of a cuboid This is an extension of the Nrich task which is currently live – where students have to find the maximum volume of a cuboid formed by cutting squares of size x from each corner of a 20 x 20 piece of paper. I’m going to use an n x 10 rectangle […]
