maths – Page 2 – don't confuse the narrator

of maths and chocolates

This labelling on a box of ‘chocolates and toffees’ makes me want to reach for a pen and paper and start drawing Venn diagrams:

a week is a long time in science

When I went to university, it was still obligatory for all students to have basic maths and English qualifications, whatever they were going to study. Even today, I’d be surprised if you could become “a scientist” (whatever that might mean) without knowing some simple arithmetic.

So how come the Madrid Science Week is scheduled to last from 8th to 21st of November? My calculations make that 13 nights/14 days, which is a lot longer than a week.

(Note that isnt really a ‘fortnight’, though, as that would be 14 nights, equivalent to the Spanish quincena which is 15 days.)

noble winners

After yesterday’s “race day“, it seems only fair to spend a few moments thinking about winners. Specifically about Nobel prize winners. And, more specifically, about mathematicians who have won Nobel prizes. (Note that there is no Nobel prize for mathematics.)

Sundays newspaper (El Público) ran a story on Echegaray, who they rightly said sounds more like a street name than anything else. He was a mathematician, but he won the Nobel prize for literature.