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The fascination of Maths thread

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    The fascination of Maths thread

    I thought I'd start this as we seem to have hijacked another thread.
    Strange and counterintuitive ideas in Maths to be posted here.
    My favourite is the fact that the it takes just 23 random people for the odds of two sharing the same birthday to be 0.5. And if you have just 40 people those odds rise to 0.9.
    Hard Brexit now!
    #prayfornodeal

    #2
    Indeed. The maths are very very interesting. Take 85 people from uk. 5000 primary schools in total. 0.5 chance that 2 of the 85 went to same primary school.

    I did some stats in my final year of Maths degree at Exeter. And the above still freaks me!

    Comment


      #3
      However what really really freaks me is that I would love to count in tpd!

      I would do so, but it is against the rules...

      Comment


        #4
        I worked out the national lottery odds myself to check if official figures right.

        They were!

        Comment


          #5
          Here is a question then - to work out standard deviation you divide by n. unless you are sampling then you divide by n-1. why is that?

          I remember doing it in 2nd year stats but never understood it then either...

          Comment


            #6
            Could I hijack this thread by talking about the brother who married his sister?

            Comment


              #7
              I've just read "e: the story of a Number" by E. Maor. Highly recommended.
              I get the strong feeling that maths is universal, in the sense that if there is another civilisation/intelligence in the universe the same rules of maths would apply.
              And I'm not religious but if there is a God, it is in the strange beauty of maths.
              Hard Brexit now!
              #prayfornodeal

              Comment


                #8
                Oi Brillo, stop hijacking this thread. TPD is for drivel, you know the rules
                Hard Brexit now!
                #prayfornodeal

                Comment


                  #9
                  Originally posted by BrilloPad View Post
                  Here is a question then - to work out standard deviation you divide by n. unless you are sampling then you divide by n-1. why is that?

                  I remember doing it in 2nd year stats but never understood it then either...

                  Can't remember details but isn't it to do with degrees of freedom?
                  Hard Brexit now!
                  #prayfornodeal

                  Comment


                    #10
                    Originally posted by sasguru View Post
                    I've just read "e: the story of a Number" by E. Maor. Highly recommended.
                    I get the strong feeling that maths is universal, in the sense that if there is another civilisation/intelligence in the universe the same rules of maths would apply.
                    And I'm not religious but if there is a God, it is in the strange beauty of maths.
                    of course pow(e, i*pi) = -1. Nice to be able to link the 3 fundamental numbers. was it euler?

                    Do current models of the universe still have 11 dimensions?

                    Comment

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