When the digits of the decimal number π can be used to divine the ups and downs of a politician’s career—apparently a numerological activity by nontenured mathematicians who moonlight for politicians who have faith in the spiritual or occultic power of numbers.
That President Trump’s re-election or rejection by the electorate could be determined by political pi proves that the intersection between pi and politics is not zero.
by MathPlus April 16, 2020
When people around the world are questioning whether pharmaceutical companies are dead serious in producing a vaccine that could cure humankind of Covid-19, or whether their moneymaking agenda is to ensure that people move from a pandemic to an endemic situation, whereby they would need to be jabbed more expensively every year to protect themselves against allegedly deadlier variants of the virus.
If vaccine manufacturers’ motives were to enrich themselves and their shareholders, inquiring about the shelf life of a corona vaccine would be like asking them an uncomfortable or taboo question, which is likely to yield a vague or unhelpful answer.
by MathPlus March 29, 2021
The all-time bestseller the devil hates seeing someone reading it, or the one book leaders from certain faiths would forbid their followers from owning a copy, because its contents have the power to set them free from spiritual blindness and bondage, and to change their lives for the better forever.
It’s not surprising that those caught carrying, much less reading, the Holy Bible in public places, in some parts of the world, could be fined or/and jailed, because religious and political leaders are afraid that the truth revealed in it would undermine their position and authority in leading people to avoid heading to the wrong side of eternity.
by MathPlus July 13, 2021
Short for mathematical enlightenment. That breakthrough thinking moment or insight you experience after trying to solve a seemingly unsolvable math problem.
Solving mathematical quickies is an inexpensive way to activating the oft-atrophied right part of the brain, which would increase the chances of experiencing an aha!—when thinking laterally or even paradoxically often acts as a catalyst to finding the solution to an apparently wicked problem.
by MathPlus April 22, 2021
When math geeks are connected to each other by their shared love for arguably the most beautiful constant in mathematics: π’s beauty, ubiquity, and utility never fail to bring and bond them together.
Just as a number of white racists and supremacists are united by the xenophobic policies of Donald J. Trump, so a number of recreational mathematicians are drawn by the occurrence or presence of pi in the least unexpected places, who love telling the non-math people: “We are one in pi.”
by MathPlus December 13, 2020
When someone describes the math taught in Singapore schools as being too difficult to understand, or complains that young students are unhealthily exposed to an obscene number of brain-unfriendly math questions—“cheem” means “deep” in the Chinese dialect Hokkien.
Ahmad who could hardly understand Mr. Goon’s lessons told his parents: “Singapore math, so cheem. I gave up!”
by MathPlus May 15, 2021
Math word problems of yesteryear that condones white racism or supremacism, such as the ungodly relationship between masters and slaves, lords and peasants, or colonizers and savages.
An 1814 issue of “The Analyst” poses the following slavery math problem: “If out of a cargo of 600 slaves, 200 die during a passage of 6 weeks from Africa to the West Indies; how long must the passage be that one half the cargo may perish? Supposing the degree of mortality to be the same throughout the passage, that is, the number of deaths at any time to be proportional to the living at the same time.”
by MathPlus November 10, 2020