One of the most important mathematical books ever written, Principia Mathematica, needed 360 pages to prove that 1 + 1 = 2. The book itself is considered so advanced and hard to understand that it’s rarely used in academia at all.
math
Shakuntala Devi from India, also known…
Shakuntala Devi from India, also known as the human computer, gave the 23rd root of a 201 digit number in 50 seconds. The answer was verified at the US Bureau of Standards by the UNIVAC 1101 computer, for which a special program had to be written to perform such a large calculation.
The chances of you being you…
The chances of you being you is about 1 in 10^2,685,000. To put that in perspective imagine 2,000,000 people each roll a 1 trillion sided dice and all land on the same number. That’s how rare you are.
Christopher Havens, a convicted murderer…
Christopher Havens, a convicted murderer solves ancient math problem in prison. Taught himself higher math and solved the age-old math puzzle of number theory involving so-called continued fractions over which Euclid has already racked his brains. He then published the journal in January 2020.
A deceased man was considered…
A deceased man was considered a coauthor of a 1990 math paper after he appeared in a dream to the other author to explain some of the key ideas.
Spain’s newest submarine was…
Spain’s newest submarine was 75+ tons heavier than expected because someone put a decimal point in the wrong place. It could go down, but might not come up again.
A futurama episode contains…
A Futurama episode contains a real-life mathematical theorem which was specifically made for that episode, making it the first known theorem to be created for the sole purpose of entertainment in a TV show.
“Decimation” means “removal of a tenth”…
“Decimation” means “removal of a tenth” in Latin, and refers to a Roman practice in which military commanders punished units for capital offenses by having soldiers execute 1 in 10 of their comrades.
A brain injury sustained…
A brain injury sustained during a mugging turned a man who used to think “math is stupid” into a mathematical savant with a form of synaesthesia that lets him see the world in fractals.
A college math professor wrote…
A college math professor wrote a fantasy “novel” workbook to teach the fundamentals of calculus. Concepts are taught through the adventures of a man who has washed ashore in the mystic land of Carmorra and the hero helps people faced with difficult mathematical problems.