Category Archives: Maths on a Mug

Maths on a Mug #16

#mathsonamug pic.twitter.com/Rd0IAC9YHw — Sean Elvidge (@seanelvidge) November 17, 2016 Perhaps a “simple” #mathsonthemug this time. Simple, but very important. This is Bayes’ theorem: $P(A|B) = \frac{P(B|A)P(A)}{P(B)}.$ This relates the probability of observing $$A$$ given that $$B$$ is true where $$A$$ … Continue reading

Maths on a Mug #15

#mathsonamug #maths #newpoundcoin pic.twitter.com/lMQm5uOUyl — Sean Elvidge (@seanelvidge) November 4, 2016 Keeping with the theme of yesterdays blog post about the new pound coin and shapes of constant diameter here is a nice little result known as Barbier’s theorem. Simply, it … Continue reading

Maths on a Mug #14

#mathsonamug #maths #puzzle pic.twitter.com/jbbehLQbp7 — Dr. Sean (@seanelvidge) January 29, 2016 A question I really like because of the logical way of thinking about the answer. First we assume that we do not allow the trivial answer where $$n=m=q=0$$. Then … Continue reading

Maths on a Mug #13

#mathsonamug #maths pic.twitter.com/zzl8CjKZ3o — Dr. Sean (@seanelvidge) January 26, 2016 A classic! This is my favourite result from Graph Theory. The branch of mathematics invented by Euler, this theorem is known as Euler’s Formula. It is a remarkable fact that … Continue reading

Maths on a Mug #12

#mathsonamug #maths pic.twitter.com/7GmWSFAfYP — Dr. Sean (@seanelvidge) January 25, 2016 One of the more common things that I’ve been asked recently. Mostly this comes from people who have watched the incredibly successful Numperphile video, but the result was well known … Continue reading

Maths on a Mug #11

#mathsonamug #maths pic.twitter.com/REPJ4xFhT9 — Dr. Sean (@seanelvidge) January 22, 2016 Primes. Primes. Primes. The hunt continually goes on for the next biggest. Well, yesterday, we found a new largest. $$2^{74207281}-1$$ is the 49th Mersenne Prime that has been found. It is 22,338,618 digits … Continue reading

Maths on a Mug #10

#mathsonamug #maths pic.twitter.com/YV2iIOuinu — Dr. Sean (@seanelvidge) January 21, 2016 Another University of Birmingham Mathematics department mug. The ‘Blakelet’ named after Professor John Blake at the University is a based upon a 1971 paper investigating the velocity and pressure fields for … Continue reading

Maths on a Mug #9

#mathsonamug #maths pic.twitter.com/Af8IJ9uGbw — Dr. Sean (@seanelvidge) January 20, 2016 Fermat’s Last Theorem is a celebrated result in mathematics, simply it says that: There are no three positive integers $$a,\,b,\,c$$ such that $$a^n+b^n=c^n$$ for any value of $$n>2$$. For the … Continue reading