Here’s an article on predicting the UK election: CLICK HERE
In the piece, I raise some queries about two very interesting articles from the excellent election news site May2015. The articles (here and here) suggest that David Cameron faces an extremely difficult task to remain as prime minister, based on the mathematics of how national polls will translate into parliamentary seats. I wonder whether the statistics support the level of confidence with which this conclusion is presented.
Feel free to have a guess via the comments. I will give the answer next week.
This is not a trick question; the sequence is based on a genuine mathematical rule. A word of warning though, although it does not require any complex mathematical knowledge the solution is pretty obscure.
SOLUTION NOW AVAILABLE: CLICK HERE
This rather elegant fact has been going round on Twitter:
“It can’t be true … can it?” Rachael Formula. More info/discussion: http://t.co/gh6Lt76si1 pic.twitter.com/sDc547kEyV
— Cliff Pickover (@pickover) April 15, 2015
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However, there are other examples of this phenomenon…
Here’s a question that caught my eye, in a tweet from @colinthemathmo:
I had a think about this and found that it is actually a deceptively beautiful little puzzle.
Click here for my piece on this problem.
My interview with Matt Pennells is now available on my Global Lab Podcast page.
In the interview, Matt talks about his work with MapAction, a UK based charity that sends volunteers to disaster-hit regions around the world, providing maps for the international agencies that respond to humanitarian catastrophes.
This episode of the podcast also features guerrilla-geographer Daniel Raven-Ellison talking to Martin Zaltz Austwick about turning London into a ‘National Park City’, and materials scientist Anna Ploszajski talking to Rob Levy about hydrogen fuel cells.
Just conducted an interview with GIS expert, Matt Pennells, for the Global Lab podcast, on his work for the UK disaster response charity MapAction, a UK charity that provides rapid response mapping services in crisis-hit regions (they are currently working in Vanuatu).
The interview should go out as part the next episode (“In the field”), some time in the next week or two. I will post a link when it is available.
Other episodes of the Global Lab that I have contributed to are collected HERE.
Thanks to everyone who engaged with the Mad Hatter puzzle. The solution is now available. There is a link at the bottom of the puzzle page:
#3: Kidnapped by the Mad Hatter
A coloured hat puzzle!
Published: 16/03/2015
Difficulty: **
Maths knowledge required: None
And HERE is a direct link to the solution.
Having finally finished writing my thesis, here it is in word cloud form (created by Wordle). Feel free to reverse engineer it:
Click on the image for a full size version.