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## Tag: math

### Pi! The poster! #awesome

By Sam Chivers, via Fresh Photons.

### Pi in the sky (or at least the first 1000 digits). #whoa

“On September 12th, residents of the San Francisco Bay area witnessed the world’s largest temporary installation (150 miles long) 10,000 miles overhead as a team of skywriters wrote out the first 1,000 digits of pi. Each number in the 100 mile loop which started in San Jose and went as far North as Berkeley, was over a quarter mile in height. The installation was the work of California-based artist ISHKY, a graduate of UC Berkeley, who claims the project “explores the boundaries of scale, public space, impermanence, and the relationship between Earth and the physical universe.”” (text from Visual News)

By Ishky, via The Visual News.

### Math nerds do it better with factorials

Information on factorials can be found here on Wikipedia.

### Tupper’s self-referential formula #whoa

“Tupper’s self-referential formula is a self-referential formula defined by Jeff Tupper that, when graphed in two dimensions, can visually reproduce the formula itself. It is used in various math and computer science courses as an exercise in graphing formulae.

Specifically (From Wikipedia):

The formula is an inequality defined by:

${1\over 2} < \left\lfloor \mathrm{mod}\left(\left\lfloor {y \over 17} \right\rfloor 2^{-17 \lfloor x \rfloor - \mathrm{mod}(\lfloor y\rfloor, 17)},2\right)\right\rfloor$

where $\lfloor \cdot \rfloor$ denotes the floor function and mod is the modulo operation.

Let k equal the following:

48584506361897134235820959624942020445814005879832445494830930850619347047088099284506447698655243648499972470249151191
104116057391774078569197543265718554420572104457358836818298237541396343382251994521916512843483329051311931999535024137
58765239264874613394906870130562295813219481113685339535565290850023875092856892694555974281546386510730049106723058933586
052544096664351265349363643957125565695936815184334857605266940161251266951421550539554519153785457525756590740540157929
001765967965480064427829131488548259914721248506352686630476300

If one graphs the set of points (x,y-k) with $0 \le x \le 106$ and $k \le y \le k + 17$ such that they satisfy the inequality given above, the resulting graph looks like this:

### WANT: The Pi bottle opener.

From the Uncommon Green (note that there’s also glassware available too), via Stacey Thinx.

### Summer Equations

By Craig Damrauer, via The Atlantic.

### When you use Pi to create art, these are the types of incredible images you might get.

First, this:

“It’s fitting to use Circos to visualize the digits of π. After all, what is more round than Circos? By mapping the digits onto a red-yellow-blue Brewer palette (0  9) and placing them as circles on an Archimedean spiral a dense and pleasant layout can be obtained.”

And this is what you get with 3422, 13,689, and 123,201 digits.

By Martin Krzywinski.More at his site.

### The Shape of Things: beautiful vintage book about shapes.

Ilonka Karasz, The Shape Of Things. Hardcover, 1964

From Brickbat Books, via Fresh Photons.

### Francis Bacon, Kevin Bacon, and the Search for the Six Degrees of Separation Heir.

By DAVID NG

Lately, I’ve been doing a little writing on the philosophy of science, and a consequence of this, is my mind pondering the plight of Bacon.  Not the food, but rather Sir Francis Bacon, who as you may or may not know, is the renown writer and gentlemen of the 16th and 17th centuries – famous for being a member of Parliament, friend to the British Monarchy, and (most important to me) often referred to as the “Father of the Scientific Method.”

Such thinking then naturally led to Kevin Bacon, who in turn, reminded me of the “Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon.” Which is also to say that inevitably, I landed at entertaining the specifics of the “Six Degrees of Sir Francis Bacon.”

This refers to the phrase, “The Six Degrees of Separation,” which submits that you are less than six “friend of a friend” steps away from everyone else on the planet.   In other words, it suggests that mankind is more connected than you would think.  Interestingly, this calculation has never been formally proven, and there might even be some evidence to suggest that social media has brought it down to four degrees, but despite all this technical wrangling, it is nevertheless obvious that it probably only works well if the people involved happen to be alive.

Which is to say that the “Six Degrees of Sir Francis Bacon,” a man who died in 1626, are probably all dead.

With this in mind, we need to return to the “Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon.” Whilst, this originally concerned itself with connections in the entertainment industry, the phrase nowadays is kind of symbolic of humanity’s interconnectedness.  Put another way, Kevin Bacon is a little like an unofficial figurehead of this game.

But figureheads are usually transient. Indeed, the fact of the matter is that Mr. Bacon is no longer the sprightly young man that danced into our hearts in Footloose.  Nor is he, despite the fact that he played an “invisible” character in Hollow Man, capable of hiding from the debilitating onward march of time.  In essence, he should be fully aware that as he ages, the concept and the mathematics of the “Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon,” will no longer be practical – indeed, it will no longer even be relevant.   Consequently, you might suppose that one day, there will need to be a proper discussion about a “six degrees” successor.

And why not start that discussion now? Namely, how would one decide on such a successor?  Of course, this would come with a few rules.  For instance, whoever is chosen should, at the very least, be younger than Kevin Bacon. Perhaps Mr. Kevin Bacon should even have a role in this process.  Anyway, as I continue to procrastinate from doing whatever it is I am supposed to be doing, I’d like to put forth the following scenarios and then maybe see if the procrastinating community at large has any thoughts on the matter:

1. The British Monarchy model.

This is where the weight of responsibility is passed on to the first born.  Furthermore, since we’re being thematic and all, this option should totally include a throne and also a crown that can be worn on special occasions.  Maybe a fancy sword as well.  Yes, a sword would be totally awesome – “The six degrees of so and so and his/her sword” has a nice ring to it.

2. The Democratic Model

Why not do this with an open election?  This would certainly be entertaining to watch, and would no doubt fuel some interesting discussion.  Although the mind boggles at how the nominees will be decided upon, and how exactly they would present themselves (more so, since the principle of the Six Degrees, hypothetically is meant to be immune from the nuisance of ideology).

3. The “So You Think You Can Dance” model.

This would be the obligatory “how can we turn this into reality TV” option. Furthermore, as Mr. Bacon, himself, is no stranger to the entertainment industry, it is perhaps the most logical model to find a successor. A dance off, moreover, would be nothing less than magical.  Think of the how fun this might be, think of the spectacle, think of the press, and think of the Kevin Bacon themed So You Think You Can Dance stationary.  As well, each time a successor is chosen, the theme of the next reality show could be tweaked according to the accomplishments of the new figurehead.  Imagine different contests each time around, ranging from cooking to planning a wedding, to a full on Hunger Games styled competition.

4. The Kevin Bacon as an Eternal Deity Model (and the similar themed “Kevin Bacon Reincarnate Model”)

Let’s face it – maybe Kevin Bacon would rather keep all the glory to himself, and also keep it forever.  If so, there is another option out there.  Both Jesus of Nazareth and Kim Jong-il of North Korea used it.  Basically, it’s where Kevin Bacon declares himself the reference point, and instead of looking for a successor, the actual number of degrees changes with time.  In other words, in a few years, we can call it “The seven degrees of Kevin Bacon,” and then “The eight degrees…” and so on and so on.  Alternatively, it could be like the Dalai Lama, and every time you pass on, there is a reincarnated version of you being born elsewhere.  I am not sure how this would work exactly (how would we identify this reincarnated Kevin Bacon?), but it seems to me a reasonable idea.  Plus, the thought of an organized religion with the word “bacon” in it has great appeal.

Anyway, it would be interesting to hear of any other ideas, or even better, to hear a successor suggestion or two.  As well, let me just end by saying that if this all sounds a little too complicated, then let’s simplify things and just pick me. I would totally be down with being next in line – especially if I can somehow score a throne, crown and a sword out of the deal.

(Originally published at boingboing.net With apologies to Kevin Bacon and Sir Francis Bacon)

### Math is Magical. Where Math and Unicorns intersect.

Not sure where this originated. All over tumblr though…

### Kurt Vonnegut and the graph of infinite happiness

Classic Vonnegut on “The Shape of Stories.” The graphs only make it cooler.

Via @cogdog

### Pythagorean Theorem Redux.

From Fake Science.

### Kitchen Venn Diagram with Eggs, Milk, and Flour

With some modifications, this might make a great “recipe” card (i.e. you include the amounts, as well as other things like crepes, etc)

### Fractal Pancakes! #sciencepancake No.1

From Saipancakes.

### Time to ride your Picycle! #math

By Tang Yau Hoong.

Via Imgur.

### Americans hate math and this newspaper article sort of provides some mathematical support.

Not sure what the source for this is.