Off the Beaten Math
jfiore | October 11, 2007Recently I received emails from two associates regarding a "get rich quick" scheme. It's made the rounds before and quite frankly I was surprised to see it poke its ugly head up again. While these hoaxes are mildly irritating, it only takes a moment of thought to determine that they absolutely must be false. Why don't people think?
The premise of this particular scheme is that Bill Gates has teamed up with AOL to create a new email tracking system. It must be true, the message says, because the author heard it on Good Morning America. In essence, you forward the message to a bunch of people.…
jfiore | July 25, 2007This week's NOVA Science NOW on PBS has an interesting piece on the Kryptos sculpture in front of CIA headquarters. The segment does a decent job of showing some of the basic techniques used such as substitution and transposition, in just a few minutes.
I am not a cryptographer but it is an area I have studied a little. It's a great topic to introduce to my first and second year programming students. Some of them really perk up when we start talking about it. Invariably, someone will ask if I can show them how to "crack" protected software. I always tell them that, although I have the…
bushwells | July 7, 2007So last year we had the dreaded 06/06/06, and lo! No apocalyptic beasts appeared in the heavens. This year, it's our lucky day: 07/07/07!
Seven is considered a "lucky number," a prime of a magical, mysterious signficance. So where does the source of this luck derive? Why, from the Bible, of course! At least in part. From LiveScience, 07/07/07: Is This Your Lucky Day?
The number seven is considered lucky due to its frequent and favorable appearance in the Bible, say historians.
"As the number of the days of God's first week, of the levels of heaven...of the numbers of angels and trumpets…
jfiore | May 11, 2007MarkCC over at Good Math, Bad Math offers up some enjoyable elements from time to time. Between the good and the bad, is there space for humorous literal math?
Yes, it's final exam time here at the college and I received the following from a colleague (the exam paper is not from one of his courses):
I almost want to give the guy a bonus point for making me laugh (particularly due to the little "etc." scrawl at the bottom).