Here’s a fun question – let’s consider, purely in the abstract, the notion of quickly putting on a lot of weight. If, hypothetically, one were to weigh themselves every day and, conceptually, throw away all of the results which showed an increase in weight, what, in a strictly Platonic sense, are the odds that actually they’re just a fat shit not actually losing any weight?
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It’s always exciting when a new 3Blue1Brown video emerges – Grant has an incredible sense for the intuitive visualisation of complex concepts (pun intended). His most recent on Newton fractals however really pushes the bar, and I couldn’t help but have a go at emulating it.
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After my last post, where I noted that 45 degrees was the optimum angle to shoot a projectile the farthest, a commenter asked if the same was true for jumping from a swing. “Of course!” I initially thought. As we shall see, it isn’t actually that simple.
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I’ve got a house now which, amongst other things, means that all of my future posts will be depressingly domestic. In particular, as I sat watching a sprinkler water my new well-shaded lawn, I noticed that some parts of grass were being watered more than others. It wouldn’t be right to fix these kinds of problems without first wringing all possible interest from them however, so let’s first understand what’s going on from the safe, dry comfort of a computer screen.
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One of the many sad consequences of the current lockdown, possibly the most unfortunate of all, is that the famous Cooper’s Hill Cheese-Rolling competition will almost certainly not be taking place this year. In the spirit of finding light in the darkness, let’s at least have a look at how we may improve it for next year. With maths!
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It’s winter again in the UK which means even more rain than usual, often accompanied by oddly-named storms. Sadly this also occasionally means flooding for many parts of the country, a fact which I usually watched with some detachment from the other (safer) side of a news report. This year is different – I have bought a house quite near the river Avon, which makes the issue more immediate. I suppose I could campaign for flood defences, or petition my new local MP, but for now let’s stick to what I know: data and maths.
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It’s been that time of year again, where I am forced to face my one and only weakness: wrapping presents. Rather than confront my failings, I’ve once again turned to my old friends: maths, computers, and bad puns.
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This post is a classic example of the malady known as Jason-itis – idly wondering about a thing, and then having to dive deep down a rabbit hole to satisfy a geeky wish. In this case the thing was ‘I wonder how you make a 3D shape which looks like different shapes from different angles’, and the rabbit hole bottomed out at this GPU-accelerated demo. Let’s look at the stuff in-between.
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I recently got a new phone, and have read online that its camera performance leaves much to be desired. As I bristle at the suggestion I could make a poor purchasing decision, let’s put this to the test. With maths!
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This post is about me finally getting over a slight irritation that happened nearly a decade ago, one which was almost completely inconsequential. Fortunately, it was related to physics, so is fair game here.
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Almost looks like work 