Math Fun Facts

Mathematics ideas, puzzles, and fun facts that will change the way you think. By @mathyawp

[Francis Su - mostly posting at 🦋 @mathyawp]

Matt’s entry is really quite terrific—it’s an exploration with a surprise at the end, and a tantalizing question!

[Francis Su - mostly posting at 🦋 @mathyawp]

Cicadas make prime numbers and GCD’s look cool. Swarms with 13 and 17 year life cycles will emerge this month in the Southeast U.S. in a rare confluence happening only every 221 years (13 x 17).

Here’s why #cicadas have large prime number lifecycles:
https://t.co/ITs3NLvrnC

[Francis Su - mostly posting at 🦋 @mathyawp]

Boom! Front porch tiling.

With dot markings (which I didn’t put on the tiles), one gets aperiodicity. See https://t.co/jHWW7FY4VH

I used @fireclaytile pickets and cut them into squares & triangles.

[Francis Su - mostly posting at 🦋 @mathyawp]

My floor tiling completed! This is a piece of the Schlottmann aperiodic tiling (second photo) discussed here https://t.co/jHWW7FY4VH. (I changed the tile colors.) Can you find the floor pattern in the second photo?

[Francis Su - mostly posting at 🦋 @mathyawp]

What does it mean to shuffle a deck? Here are some of the slides I made for my @MathforAmerica talk at #MfAThursdayThinks last night. We did a simple example with a 3 card deck. (Thread)

[Francis Su - mostly posting at 🦋 @mathyawp]

Some fun animations here, following cards in perfect shuffles on decks of various sizes

[Francis Su - mostly posting at 🦋 @mathyawp]

We (professors) cheered up our #LinearAlgebra students with this surprise on the last day.

With @TheMagicOfMath @HZinnbrooks & Prof O. at @harveymudd https://t.co/MWjN9zTRE4

[Mathigon @MathigonOrg]

Here you can see five intersecting Tetrahedra, each in a different colour, constructed using 30 sheets of paper and with no scissors or glue. Explore many more Origami models at https://t.co/BSbYTAlp6O

[Francis Su - mostly posting at 🦋 @mathyawp]

Challenge: write a pi-ku pi-mnemonic for #PiDay: like a haiku but with 3,14,15 syllables (a pi-ku), PLUS word lengths count digits of pi! Here's mine:

How I pine,
I dream longingly of golden rings and round circular
spherical figures: metaphors for pi, for unending love.

[Francis Su - mostly posting at 🦋 @mathyawp]

Fun Fact: 999999 appears surprisingly early in the decimal representation of Pi: at the 762nd position! See where other strings of digits appear using this tool from @dave_andersen: https://t.co/6QY8NQfePs

[Howie Hua @howie_hua]

@edutinker Yeah, for example, 16% of 75, you can just do 75% of 16, which is 12.

[MAA @maanow]

Experiencing mathematical beauty is within everyone's reach. @mathyawp @Math4HF #Math4HF https://t.co/6NxsAajFQG

[The Fields Institute @FieldsInstitute]

If you're feeling a bit "in the weeds" right now, take a break, give this lovely piece by Francis Su (@mathyawp) a read, and take a second to remember and enjoy the many ways #mathematics can be beautiful. https://t.co/0DG259ObSp

[Francis Su - mostly posting at 🦋 @mathyawp]

Clever combinatorics, based on error correcting codes, allows pooled testing in a single step https://t.co/JH2xEKEi1Q

[Matt Henderson @matthen2]

a visual proof that the volume and surface area of a torus is the same as a cylinder (with radius r and height 2πR). Each swivel does not change the volume or surface area

[Tim Chartier @timchartier]

Here's a mathematical tweet, quite literally! Based on the nullstellentfont presented in @maanow Math Horizons! Very fun. Try it yourself at: https://t.co/nHj2r2Jv4k

[Martin Holtham @GHSMaths]

Viviani's theorem: From any point within an equilateral triangle, the sum of the perpendicular distances to the three sides is equal to the height of the triangle.

https://t.co/aM1tkKfuaw

[Francis Su - mostly posting at 🦋 @mathyawp]

Stuck at home, with kids? Try this new game: #GameOfCycles. Who has a winning strategy, player 1 or player 2? (thread) #MathAtHome #MTBoS #tmwyk

[Francis Su - mostly posting at 🦋 @mathyawp]

An excellent intro to the mathematics of outbreaks, including the new #coronavirus, by probabilist Tom Britton. Explains R_0 that everyone is referring to. Shows the power of math models in shaping our understanding & response to epidemics. https://t.co/RZBKcWsMrw #Math4HF

[Francis Su - mostly posting at 🦋 @mathyawp]

TODAY is the DAY! Launch day! Don't believe in your own math potential? @Math4HF might change your mind. Think doing math must be devoid of feeling? I wrote my book to move hearts. There ARE better answers to the Q: "why do #math?" than just "to be college-and-career-ready."