JabaPloc®

Inteligencia y creatividad al servicio de la humanidad.

[Everardo Rodrigues Jr. @everardoadv]

Onboard histórica: Senna x Prost, Suzuka, 1989.

Volta 47: Prost fecha a porta na chicane e as duas McLaren se tocam. Prost desce do carro. Senna pede o empurrão dos fiscais, volta pela área de escape, troca o bico nos boxes, passa Nannini e vence.

Horas depois, a desclassificação: teria cortado a chicane ao retornar. Prost campeão. Não na pista, no tapetão!!!

Aumente o som, que o barulhinho desse V10 da McLaren é música para os ouvidos.

[Math Files @Math_files]

How to Solve a Rubik's Cube in 7 Steps

[Matheorems @matheorems]

Maxwell's Four Equations, All Moving at Once

All of electricity, magnetism and light in four lines.

Gauss: the flux of E out of any closed surface is q / epsilon_0. The surface wobbles, but every field line still crosses it exactly once, so the flux never changes. Double the charge and the lines double.

No monopoles: the flux of B out of any closed surface is 0. Every line of B that enters the loop also leaves it, wherever the loop drifts.

Ampere-Maxwell: B circulates around a current i, and just as much around a changing electric field, mu_0 (i + epsilon_0 dPhi_E/dt). When the current turns around, so does B.

Faraday: a changing magnetic flux drives E around the loop, minus dPhi_B/dt. The minus sign is Lenz's law: the induced E always pushes against the change, and flips every time the flux turns around.

Below, the same four laws in differential form: div E = rho / epsilon_0, div B = 0, curl B = mu_0 (j + epsilon_0 dE/dt), curl E = -dB/dt.

[Paul McGinnes @McGF192]

The 2003 Brazilian GP produced a classic with heavy rain causing chaos at the Autódromo José Carlos Pace.

After an FIA investigation (caused by multiple red flag periods and time keeping errors) Giancarlo Fisichella was awarded the race victory with Kimi Räikkönen claiming P2 and Fernando Alonso, despite being in hospital after his huge crash, finishing in P3. #F1

[Zyron @Zyron5m]

Nigel Mansell turned down a reported £12 million to £13 million from Williams in 1992, because it would not put him level with Ayrton Senna. Then Senna told Frank Williams he would drive for the team for nothing. Mansell says that within 24 hours of winning the world title he had no seat for 1993, unless he took half his salary.

In the video below, from an interview out this month, he is asked if Williams let him go 2 days after he became champion. "No, first day," he says. Alain Prost had already signed, "and they didn't want me in the car with him." He had asked for a three-year contract and never got one.

Senna answers in the second half of the video, filmed days after the announcement. He admits "I've been trying to negotiate with the Williams team," and that many people think it is why Nigel is retiring. "I can tell you it is not." He puts it down to Mansell's "own problems with his own team," built up over "months and months."

The talks had run since March. Motor Sport magazine reported at the time that Mansell refused the £12 million to £13 million before the Spanish Grand Prix in May. He then won 9 races that year and took the title in Hungary with 5 rounds left. Days after he thought the new deal was agreed, Senna's free offer landed and the money came down.

On 13 September at Monza he read a statement to the press: "Due to circumstances beyond my control, I have decided to retire from Formula 1 at the end of this season." Williams' marketing director Sheridan Thynne tried to step in, saying Frank had now accepted the original terms. Mansell said so out loud and retired anyway, calling it "fair play or the lack of it."

I think Mansell lost the money on the day he won the title. Until Hungary, Williams needed him to win it. After Hungary, Williams owned the car that had won it, and Senna was asking to sit in it for free. If your value runs through someone else's machine, fix your price before you deliver, because afterwards the next man in line sets it.

Senna did not get the seat for 1993 either, because Prost's contract reportedly kept him out, and Mansell went to America and won the IndyCar title as a rookie. If you were Frank Williams in August 1992, would you pay the man who had just won you the title, or take the man offering to drive for nothing?

I post one story like this every day: a famous name, the money they made, and who ended up with it.

[Math Files @Math_files]

Ernő Rubik: The Man Who Turned Geometry into a Global Obsession

Born on July 13, 1944, in Budapest, Hungary, Ernő Rubik grew up surrounded by creativity. His father designed aircraft, while his mother was a poet. Rubik eventually found his own calling in architecture, sculpture, and the fascinating world of three-dimensional geometry.

In 1974, while teaching design in Budapest, he created a small mechanical puzzle to explore how individual parts could move independently while remaining connected as a whole.

It was an extraordinary idea. But something unexpected happened.

Once the cube's colored faces were scrambled, restoring them proved remarkably difficult. Even Rubik needed time to solve his own invention.

Originally called the Magic Cube, it reached international markets in 1980 as the Rubik's Cube. What began as an experiment in spatial movement became one of the most recognizable puzzles ever created, selling hundreds of millions of copies and inspiring generations of mathematicians, engineers, artists, and speedcubers.

The mathematics is astonishing. A standard 3 × 3 × 3 Rubik's Cube has exactly 43,252,003,274,489,856,000 possible configurations.

Yet every solvable configuration can be solved in 20 moves or fewer.

Rubik gave the world something remarkable: a physical object that makes the beauty, complexity, and mystery of mathematics accessible to anyone willing to turn its faces.

One cube. Six colors. More than 43 quintillion possibilities.

[Paul McGinnes @McGF192]

1991 Australian GP: Torrential rain resulted in the race being stopped after just 16 of the scheduled 81 laps had been completed. The official results were declared from the end of the 14th lap.

Ayrton Senna was victorious from Nigel Mansell in P2 & Gerhard Berger in P3. #F1

[Paul McGinnes @McGF192]

F1 engine failures used to play a massive part in the outcome of a race or the championship.

Here are just some of the biggest in the history of the Formula One World Championship. #F1

[Historic Vids @historyinmemes]

In one of history’s most extraordinary coincidences, 55 people experienced September 11, 2001, while completely disconnected from the outside world.

As part of the BBC documentary experiment The Ship: Retracing Cook’s Endeavour Voyage, participants spent weeks living like 18th-century sailors aboard a replica of Captain James Cook’s HMS Endeavour. Traveling from Cairns to Jakarta, they had no access to television, internet, phones, or modern communication.

The crew relied on traditional navigation techniques and remained isolated from the modern world, with outside contact permitted only in emergencies.

When the September 11 terrorist attacks occurred, the expedition’s captain made the difficult decision to break their isolation and inform everyone aboard.

Unlike billions of people who watched the horrifying events unfold on television, the crew learned about the attacks entirely through the captain’s words. They never saw the planes strike the World Trade Center, the towers collapse, or the endless news coverage that followed.

The devastating news left everyone aboard stunned and heartbroken. Yet their experience was profoundly different from that of the rest of the world. They understood the magnitude of the tragedy without witnessing the images that would become permanently etched into global memory.

Following the announcement, every participant was offered the opportunity to leave the expedition and return home. Remarkably, all 55 chose to continue their journey.

Their extraordinary experience was later documented in Episode 4, titled Time Travellers, which aired on September 10, 2002, nearly one year after the attacks.

For these 55 individuals, one of the most defining moments in modern history arrived not through a television screen or breaking news alert, but through a single conversation aboard a ship in the middle of the ocean.

[Historic Vids @historyinmemes]

In 1983, Rick Charls attempted a seemingly impossible feat: a breathtaking 172-foot dive that reportedly sent him plunging toward the water at nearly 72 mph.

Performing before a crowd at SeaWorld, Charls launched himself from the towering platform, facing an impact estimated at an astonishing 10 Gs. Experts had warned that the force of hitting the water from such a height could be fatal.

But Charls relied on extraordinary precision and years of preparation. With near-perfect body positioning, he sliced into the water and resurfaced without serious injury, astonishing spectators.

What many believed was beyond human capability became one of the most remarkable moments in high-diving history, establishing a record that has endured for decades.

[Math Files @Math_files]

Repeat just two moves, R then U, on a solved Rubik's Cube. After 105 repetitions, it's perfectly solved again.

[Mathematica @mathemetica]

Why does a straw look bent in a glass of water?

Light changes speed between media and bends to keep n₁ sin θ₁ = n₂ sin θ₂.

Air to glass (1.00 → 1.50): 50° becomes 30.7°, toward the normal. Glass to air: 30° opens to 48.6°. Past the critical angle, sin θc = n₂/n₁ gives 41.8°, and no light escapes.

That total internal reflection carries the internet through optical fibre.

One ratio of speeds decides every ray's path.

Where did you last notice refraction?

[Global Statistics @Globalstats11]

Most Popular F1 Drivers (1950 - 2026): Rise & Fall 🏎

[Lupen @0xLupenn]

In 1883, French mathematician Édouard Lucas invented a puzzle with 8 colored disks and 3 wooden pegs. He sold it as a children's toy for a few francs. Then he attached a legend to the box that said: when the puzzle is solved with 64 disks, the world will end.

The mathematics inside that toy box proved the legend was not entirely wrong. At 1 move per second, solving the 64-disk version takes 585,000,000,000 years. The universe is 13,800,000,000 years old. Lucas built the apocalypse into a children's game and sold it at a market stall in Paris.

The three rules that make this puzzle unsolvable for 99% of people [Section I] -

Move only one disk at a time. Only the top disk can be moved. A larger disk can never be placed on a smaller one. Three rules. That is the entire game.

With 5 disks it requires 31 perfect moves. With 10 disks: 1,023 perfect moves. With 20 disks: over 1,000,000 perfect moves. One wrong move and you restart from zero.

The formula that makes mathematicians go silent [Equation 2] -

M(n) = 2^n minus 1. The exact minimum number of moves to solve n disks. No shortcut exists. No clever trick reduces it. The mathematics makes this number the absolute floor - and the ceiling simultaneously.

For 64 disks: 18,446,744,073,709,551,615 moves. Written out completely. Every single one of them mandatory.

Why a supercomputer running 1,000,000 moves per second still collapses [Section V] -

Each additional disk requires solving two complete versions of the entire puzzle plus one final move. The growth is not linear. It is not quadratic. It explodes exponentially - doubling with every single disk added without exception.

At 1,000,000 moves per second the 64-disk puzzle still takes 585,000 years to finish. Lucas sold this logic for a few coins in 1883 and nobody understood what they were holding.

The terrifying legend he printed inside every single box -

In a temple in Hanoi, 64 golden disks sit on a diamond needle. Hindu priests have been moving them since the beginning of creation following the three rules exactly. When they place the last disk - the tower collapses, the temple crumbles, the world ends instantly.

The mathematics confirms the priests have not even started yet relative to the time remaining.

What the total number of possible game states actually means [Section VI] -

S(n) = 3^n. Every disk can sit on any of three pegs. For 64 disks: 3^64 total configurations. That number written out is 3,433,683,820,292,512,484,657,849,089,281 possible states.

Only a microscopic fraction of those states lie on the optimal solution path. Every other state is a dead end Lucas engineered deliberately.

The quote Lucas published with the original 1883 puzzle -

"The number of moves required grows so rapidly that even the gods would need eternity to finish what the priests began."

He wrote this as marketing copy. The exponential formula proved he was not exaggerating by a single move.

Working Note No. 18, September 2026
Discrete Mathematics, Recursion and Algorithmic Problem Solving Series

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[Math Files @Math_files]

A fraction of a degree can change an entire pattern. At approximately 137.507764°, the golden angle, given by 360°/φ², helps explain the remarkable spiral arrangements seen in sunflower heads.

[Math Files @Math_files]

Rubik's Cube and Permutations

[Zdravko @zdravkost]

51 pole positions. A record extended 🎌
On this day in 1990, Ayrton Senna 🇧🇷 put the McLaren MP4/5B - Honda RA100E V10 on pole at Suzuka, his 51st career P1, more than anyone in F1 history at the time.

[Math Files @Math_files]

In mathematics, the four-digit black hole number is 6174, which is famously known as Kaprekar's constant.

[Paul McGinnes @McGF192]

Roadblock at Mirabeau! 😲

Gerhard Berger (McLaren MP4/5B) makes contact with Alain Prost (Ferrari 641) at the Circuit de Monaco. #F1

[Historic Vids @historyinmemes]

In 1991, Nintendo made a decision that would forever change the gaming industry and ultimately help create one of its biggest competitors.

Nintendo had originally teamed up with Sony to develop a CD-ROM add-on for the Super Nintendo, resulting in a prototype known as the Nintendo PlayStation. However, just one day after Sony publicly announced the partnership at the Consumer Electronics Show, Nintendo shocked everyone by revealing a separate agreement with Philips instead.

The fallout reportedly came down to disagreements over software licensing rights, financial control, and the terms of the partnership. Sony was suddenly left behind, but rather than abandoning the gaming industry, the company decided to move forward on its own.

That decision led to the launch of the original PlayStation in Japan in 1994, marking the beginning of a gaming empire that would go on to challenge Nintendo for decades. What started as a failed partnership became one of the most consequential turning points in video game history.