Tag Archives: Maths

Political Pi

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The seat totals of the four largest political parties at the general election (excluding Northern Ireland and the speaker), 330, 232, 56, 8, appear in sequence, starting from the eighty-eight million, five hundred and eight thousand, three hundred and seventy-ninth digit of π, counting after the decimal point.

To think that the election result was staring us in the face all the time. If only we had known where to look, we could have saved ourselves all that bother with the polls…

(Actually, √2 is even more helpful, giving us the DUP seat total as well. 330, 232, 56, 8, 8 appear in sequence, starting from the one billion, forty million, one hundred and thirty-two thousand, five hundred and seventy-third digit of √2, counting after the decimal point.)

Search for other numbers hidden in mathematical constants here.

Election predictions and statistical independence

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OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

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.

A Challenge

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Maths Challenge.001

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