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# Posts

### November 01, 2014

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Which shape is worst of all for packing the plane? That is, which has the lowest maximal packing density? Suppose we demand that our shape be convex and also centrally symmetric: that is, a subset $S \subseteq \mathbb{R}^2$ such that $x \in S$ implies $-x \in S$. Then a certain 'smoothed octagon' is conjectured to be the worst. Amazingly, this shape has a 1-parameter family of maximally dense packings, shown in this image created by Greg Egan.

### October 31, 2014

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Portrait of the great mathematician Adrien-Marie Legendre, painted in 1820. Adrien-Marie Legendre (French pronunciation: ​[adʁiɛ̃ maʁi ləʒɑ̃ːdʁ]) (18 September 1752 – 10 January 1833) was a French mathematician. Legendre made numerous contributions to mathematics. Well-known and important concepts such as the Legendre polynomials and Legendre transformation are named after him. [...]
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Without Haste (2003)  album cover of the Russian rock-group Voskresenie   http://im-possible.info/english/art/misc/cd/voskresenie.html
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Having issues with the video? Try the audio-only feed using the player below! Susan Cantey is at it again!  This time she had help from her two granddaughters on creating this song! The song is a mathematical parody of "Monster Mash" by Bobby (Boris) Pickett You can find this on YouTube at youtu.be/ZSo0JcpffTk!If you like this song, be sure to find Susan Cantey's other works on Spotify, iTunes, and CD Baby! [...]
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We at Calculus Humor will like to wish everyone a happy and safe Halloween! [...]
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Look! More size of very big things with large numbers, compared against things that you're kind of familiar with. Does …Tags: astronomy, scale
Editor's Pick
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David Spiegelhalter, professor of public understanding of risk, does some back-of-the-napkin math to describe why recent prostitution estimates for the …Tags: prostitution, taxes, uncertainty
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(Click on the comic if you can't see the full image.) (C)Copyright 2014, C. Burke.They're decomposing numbers ... there's less of them every year ... Happy Halloween!
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twocubes: anewkindofmagic: twocubes: aeneida: twocubes: cute! I want to prove this but I don’t know where to start hint: I got in quite a mess of algebra when I did this. Curse the sum of squares formula and all its works. Alternate way I found: consider the pairs of squares on both sides , starting with the largest. Take the smaller from the bigger, and add these differences. We want to prove that this is equal to the square of n(2n+1). For instance, (14^2-12^2)+(13^2-11^2)=10^2. […]

### October 30, 2014

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NPR spent some time on the subject of the decline of women in computer science. Whereas the the percentage of …Tags: computer science, gender, NPR
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On Quora, someone asked, "What are the chances of survival of individual chess pieces in average games?" Oliver Brennan answered …Tags: chess, survival rate
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(Click on the comic if you can't see the full image.) (C)Copyright 2014, C. Burke.Secant you will find what Man was Not Meant to Know.

### October 29, 2014

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Chain   by Andreas Aronsson   http://im-possible.info/english/art/computer/andreas-aronsson.html#chain
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Ipsos MORI, primarily a marketing research group I think, released results of their study on public perception of demographics versus …Tags: ignorance, world
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Is it too late for me to go back to elementary school? [...]
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Accompanying their segment on Halloween stores stocking costumes, NPR ranks bestsellers for the past four years, based on data from …Tags: costume, Halloween, ranking
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Say you have time series data and you want to detect significant changes, but there's also a lot of noise …Tags: changes, time series, Twitter
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(Click on the comic if you can't see the full image.) (C)Copyright 2014, C. Burke.You don't meet nice shapes on Skid Row. Don't feed the plant! Plus a Constant.
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mathematica: iwasateenagefaery: joanne-and-deans-bacon: I’M SAVING THESE TO FUCK WITH PEOPLE’S BRAINS I just love the boy’s reactions i keep imagining a little boy screaming bedtime paradox and then immediately falling to sleep I see you, Bertrand Russell.

### October 28, 2014

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Reddit AMA happening now here https://twitter.com/jamesgrime/status/527204677050703872
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