It’s the first of December, and the @elizabot_xmas Twitter account is up and running again, tweeting random phrases generated from the Queen’s Christmas broadcasts using a two-step Markov chain.
Follow her here.
Happy 5th of December!
Throughout the month, to accompany the release of our book on the Mathematics of Christmas, Hannah Fry & I are tweeting out Christmathsy bits and pieces, one a day, advent calendar style. Assuming we don’t run out of ideas, that is…
Something a bit different today. As part of the research for our book, we created a two-step Markov model to analyse the Queen’s Christmas Messages and generate tweets in the same style. We’ll be tweeting these out from now until she delivers her message (When you can test how accurate we were!).
Across her 64 messages (including a written message in 1969), our Liz has actually got through a remarkably wide range of topics (with admirably little repetition, given the unvarying nature of her brief!), so don’t be surprised if the Elizabot comes out with the occasional musing on magnets, bagpipes or football.
I have finally finished the follow-up to my previous article on the maths of TV quiz show Pointless:
Like the first part, I have attempted to write the new article such that it is accessible to all. It involves computer simulation and probability.
Merry Christmas to all.
So, I’ve written an article on a mathematical sequence arising from the episodes of the BBC TV quiz show Pointless. Honestly.
Hopefully, it is written so as to be understood without any specialist knowledge at all. I have tried to keep the maths as brief and as friendly as possible.*
I have a couple more articles planned (on equally fascinating and inspirational subjects, of course), so keep an eye out for those.
‘Til soon.
*For those who are mathematically inclined, it’s about Markov chains…