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.
math
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.
Lewis Fry Richardson derived…
Lewis Fry Richardson derived many of the complex equations needed for weather prediction in the 1920’s. However, the math was so difficult that to predict the weather six hours in advance, it took him six weeks to do the calculations.
Bicycle stability is actually…
Bicycle stability is actually a quite difficult mathematical problem. It was fully explained no sooner than 2007.
Shakuntala Devi, also known…
Shakuntala Devi, also known as the human computer, gave the 23rd root of a 201 digit number in 50 seconds. The answer(546,372,891) 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.
A lottery scratcher in England…
A lottery scratcher in England was cancelled because too many customers could not figure out which is the higher of two negative numbers.
People with poor mathematical skills aren’t necessarily…
People with poor mathematical skills aren’t necessarily bad at math because they are ‘ungifted’. There is a phenomena called ‘Math Anxiety’ that makes people perform worse, which sometimes leads to math avoidance, which leads to lesser knowledge and consequently more Math anxiety.