EL. The Law of Small Numbers

FromThe Math Factor

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EL. The Law of Small Numbers

FromThe Math Factor

ratings:

Length:

9 minutes

Released:

Sep 3, 2008

Format:

Podcast episode

Description

In which we discuss the Fibonacci numbers, the law of small numbers, and just why one should expect to see the golden ratio so often.

Released:

Sep 3, 2008

Format:

Podcast episode

Titles in the series (100)

A brief, weekly math conversation and puzzle, airing on KUAF 91.3 FM, Fayetteville Arkansas. Send your answers, comments, questions, puzzles, or cash, to mathfactor@uark.edu!

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AF. Counting All: Are the rationals rational? by The Math Factor
8 min listen
AJ. The Pop Quiz: Why 462 is the least interesting number less than 1000, and the students get a paradoxical pop quiz. by The Math Factor
5 min listen
AU. Dennis Shasha asks about Polish Multiplication: Dennis Shasha, puzzle columnist for Scientific American, asks about a curious way to multiply numbers on your fingers. by The Math Factor
4 min listen
AM. Arrow's Theorem: Can A be better than B, B be better than C and C be better than A? No voting system will ever be fair! by The Math Factor
9 min listen
AO. Choosing Balls from A Bag: A fifty-fifty chance of drawing four blue balls from a bag: how many balls were blue? by The Math Factor
3 min listen
AH. QED: In this "secret track", we show there are vastly more real numbers than rationals! by The Math Factor
5 min listen
AA. The Way Out of the Forest: Which way leads out of the forest of Liars & Truth-tellers by The Math Factor
4 min listen
AD. Bigger and Smaller Infinities: Are there only half as many even numbers as counting numbers? by The Math Factor
8 min listen
AN. More Sucker Bets: Is there always a better choice? by The Math Factor
6 min listen
AS. A Puzzle From Peter Winkler: Peter Winkler, author of "Mathematical Puzzles: A Connoisseur's Collection", asks how many coins are needed to cover a table. by The Math Factor
5 min listen
AC. No Vacancy: A hotel with an infinite number of rooms... by The Math Factor
7 min listen
AI. Census Taker's Puzzle: More puzzles from the Mathfactor, featuring the mathematical stylings of KUAF's Kyle Kellams and Chaim Goodman-Strauss. by The Math Factor
4 min listen
AG. The Eagle: How far does the eagle fly as it makes an infinite series of shorter and shorter trips? by The Math Factor
6 min listen
AK. Paradoxes and Liars: The mathematics of gossiping! by The Math Factor
4 min listen
BL. Eternally diminishing returns: With enough time and patience and bananas, can we go as far as we please? by The Math Factor
7 min listen
AB. The Rational Ruler: Finer and finer, a ruler with infinitely many marks... by The Math Factor
7 min listen
AL. Rumors and suckers: In which we show gossip is unreliable and how you can always fleece a sucker. by The Math Factor
6 min listen
AT. Peter Winkler Answers: Peter Winkler answers. Another puzzle next week! by The Math Factor
4 min listen
BQ. The Smuggler is Paid: Dennis Shasha answers his puzzle. by The Math Factor
5 min listen
AE. The Jalopy: What is "average?" by The Math Factor
5 min listen
AQ. The Principle of Indifference Redux: The solution to the balls puzzle and a quick puzzle about cards. by The Math Factor
4 min listen
AZ. Another puzzle from Peter Winkler: We answer last week's puzzle and Peter Winkler asks how to send a ring through the land of the kleptomaniacs. by The Math Factor
3 min listen
BA. The Ring is Exchanged: Peter Winkler answers his puzzle set in the Land of Kleptomaniacs, and we chat about Martin Gardner. We'll pose another puzzle next week! by The Math Factor
5 min listen
AW. Will we run out of Social Security Numbers?: When will the crisis come? When will we run out of Social Security Numbers, and other musings. by The Math Factor
5 min listen
BH. The Poincaré Conjecture: Jeff Weeks, author of "The Shape of Space", discusses the hypersphere and the famous Poincaré Conjecture! by The Math Factor
8 min listen
BR. We Don't Know the Way Out!: This puzzle has us stumped! How do you escape this diabolical trap? by The Math Factor
4 min listen
BF. Catching Errors: Credit card numbers have an error catching code, that uses the tricks of the last few weeks. by The Math Factor
5 min listen
AX. Averages are not what they seem!: Is a man of perfectly average height, and perfectly average weight, too heavy for his size? Averages are not what they seem to be. by The Math Factor
7 min listen
AV. Dennis Shasha Answers: The solution is a quick bit of algebra, but how do you explain it on the air? by The Math Factor
5 min listen
BY. Guests at a Party: A short, but tricky puzzle: how many guests must you invite before you can be sure that there are at least three mutual acquaintances or three mutual strangers? by The Math Factor
2 min listen

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HR. CardColm: Colm Mulcahy joins us to share some of his card magic! by The Math Factor
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HQ. Newton v Leibnitz: A break from puzzling to discuss the history of the great Newton-Liebnitz dispute over the invention of Calculus, with the playwright Todd Taylor. by The Math Factor
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HL. Bear Hunt: Kyle stumps Chaim, and we revisit a neat twist on an old chestnut by The Math Factor
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HE. On Cake and Coffee: In which we discuss the mystery of cooling coffee. by The Math Factor
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HC. Strongly Connected Components: Check out the Strongly Connected Components podcast at acmescience.com by The Math Factor
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HB. Puzzlers Pegg and Stephens: Back with an interview with two fantastic puzzlers, Ed Pegg (mathpuzzle.com) and James Stephens (puzzlebeast.com) Check out mathfactor.uark.edu for lots of links to the puzzles and people they talk about. by The Math Factor
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HA! Conway on Gardner: John H. Conway on his friendship with Martin Gardner. by The Math Factor
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The Math Factor Takes a Bow: We are taking the summer off (at a minimum) but check back in a while for new segments. And don't forget to drop us a line! by The Math Factor
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GY. Conversation with Greg Chaitin: A conversation with Greg Chaitin, creator of Chaitin's Omega and author, most recently, of MetaMath!! These ideas are well worth a close listen. by The Math Factor
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GW. Wolfram's Principle of Computational Equivalence: Stephen Wolfram, creator of Mathematica and author of A New Kind of Science describes a fundamental principle, showing how irreducible complexity arises even in simple systems. by The Math Factor
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G4G9 Report From the Gathering: Quick interviews at the Gathering, with Stephen Wolfram, Will Shortz, Dale Seymore, John Conway and many others! by The Math Factor
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GV. Three Quick G4G9 Puzzles From Ed Pegg: We catch up with Ed Pegg, of mathpuzzle.com who gives us three great puzzles! Now Tweeting from G4G9! by The Math Factor
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GV. Mix Up At The Five And Dime: A vintage segment from July 11, 2004. by The Math Factor
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GU. Number Freak: Derrick Niederman tells us what is so un-22 about Catch 22, and other marvels from his new book, Number Freak. by The Math Factor
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GT. The Largest Escher Exhibit Ever: The largest Escher exhibit ever is on display in Boca Raton. A must see event! by The Math Factor
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GS. I Met A Man: In which we discuss the yillion and a strange encounter with an aged man. by The Math Factor
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GR. VIth Anniversary of the Math Factor!: That's right, we return with our sixth anniversary "special". Can a clip show be far behind? by The Math Factor
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EL. The Law of Small Numbers

EL. The Law of Small Numbers

Description

Titles in the series (100)

More Episodes from The Math Factor