I don’t want to talk in too much detail about the presidential inauguration today, or the speech he gave afterwards, but there was one phrase which I was very happy to see:

We will raise science to its rightful place.

I was watching this in King’s Buildings House, which, if you are not familiar with Edinburgh Uni, is the Union in the Science and Engineering campus, and this quote prompted a rather loud cheer in the room. Then I started to wonder what he actually meant by this.

He went on to talk about replacing current forms of energy with renewable ones, which, while interesting, didn’t seem to follow on naturally from the science statement. Maybe he meant putting science in its place by actually considering the facts of global warming rather than dismissing them offhand by saying technology will cure all ills, I don’t know.

But what on earth is the “proper place” of science and why isn’t it there right now? I’m not sure what he meant by this statement, but I know for sure that in this country, science isn’t really that high on many people’s agenda, for one reason or another. This saddens me, because I know that a large part of my life has been dedicated to the study of science (if you will be gracious enough to classify mathematics as a science) and, to be honest, it’s come to define my life in many ways, so to see it dismissed so readily (especially by “art” snobs*) is quite hurtful.

It’s easy to guess that science is in such a lowly position because people see it as not a worthwhile thing to be studying, either because it’s boring or difficult, but I wonder what else is holding it back (at this point I would like to say I’m not trying to create a false arts v science dichotomy)?  I don’t believe the previous president is to blame, rather I wonder if there is some aspect of modern western culture that downplays science. Who knows?

My guess is that hopefully he will introduce better education of science, and utilise research and other data into making informed decisions as to what to do about the environment amongst other things, and perhaps it might trickle over here. That would make me very happy indeed.

* by this I mean people involved in the “arts” who look down their nose at science (a minority), not just any old “arts” person, I am not trying to imply people involved in the arts are all snobs!

I feel a bit ill. Earlier today, my Maple code gave me a (massive) result I was looking for, but I was pulled away from checking it as I had to attend a class.

Now, I really don’t want to check it in case it’s wrong. But I guess I have to. It’ll be devastating if it turns out to be wrong, but that’s the risk you run. I’ll let you know how that goes soon enough.

If you want any insight into how Mathematicians work, I will lead you on the merry train of thought I had tonight:

1. The square root of 2 is irrational (you can’t write it as a fraction like 1/2), I haven’t proved that in a while..

2. But why stop there? If √2 is irrational shouldn’t the cube root be irrational? Turns out it is.

3. In fact, shouldn’t any root of 2 be irrational?  Yup.

4. But why stop at 2? What about proving parts 1-3, replacing “2″ with “3″? Yay, that works too.

5. Maybe it works with 4. Oh no, the square root of four is 2! It all falls down! Why not see if 1-3 apply for all the primes? By gosh it does, the nth root of any prime number (n>1) is indeed irrational.

6. I think that maybe I should point out that 1 is not a prime number (it’s actually a unit, fact fans), because people are often misinformed.

7. What about non-integer* rational numbers? Can I raise them to the nth power to get an integer? Golly gosh, I cannot, and this proves everything I was trying to prove already.

8. Maybe there’s another, broader way I can show that √2 is irrational? Nah, sod it, it’s time for bed.

* an integer is an element of the set Z, which is the ring of numbers generated by adding or subtracting 1, or whole numbers for those of you who speak english.

Now if only this stuff was actually any use for my thesis, I might actually get something useful done. But it is beautiful anyway.

I have had a relative flurry of blog posts recently , but I must confess that I will probably have not much time to write for the next while. Hence, I will be “recycling” some old posts from my previous blogspot blog to appease you while I ponder things. Not to worry though, I have two good ideas (yes, count ‘em TWO) for posts so they should make an appearance soon.

Meantime, enjoy my post about bookies and why you can’t fleece ‘em (unless you have a De Lorean and a copy of a 2015 Sports Almanac)

<<I don’t gamble, but I find odds fascinating. In my naive youth, I thought that bookies’ odds represented the actual probability of an event happening, but now I am aware this is not the case.

For instance, if, for some reason, bookies opened a book on the roll of a dice, you might find that the odds on it getting any particular number were 4/1 against (rather than 5/1 as you might expect). The reason for this is that I could bet £1 on each of the six possible outcomes and I would be guaranteed to get £6 back if the odds were 5/1 (you get your stake back if you win), thus breaking even. That would be utterly pointless, but the bookies want to get something out of you betting. Thus odds of 4/1 would guarantee that you would make a loss if you tried the “spread your money” scheme. This is why you might get, for example, two evenly matched teams being odds on to win a match they were playing against each other.

However, odds on a sporting event can still be misleading. The bookies only have part of the say as to what odds to give someone to win something, while the punters get the remaining say.

The reason for this is that if lots of punters seem to be betting on a particular event, the bookies will want to cut their losses and reduce the potential payout for this happening (thus losing less money). This is why England and English teams always seem to be among the favourites to win international competitions in Britain (but generally not elsewhere), since a lot of people here will bet on them (a lot of Scots are rumoured to bet on England: the logic being that if England win, then at least they will have something to make them happy. Frankly, that seems a bit daft).

Another thing you will find is that it is impossible to spread money over various bookies to ensure a guaranteed profit. You can get a maxiumum guaranteed return of about 95p for each pound bet currently on the 2008 Six Nations, for example. Doing it at all at the same bookie will net you about 85p max.

Thus, it is very difficult indeed to beat the bookie. There is one, guaranteed way to break even though. Bet £0 on everything. It worked for me.>>

One aspect of flat living that is unavoidable is the designation of washing-up duties. We are currently in the process of trying to figure out the best way of allocating said duties for next year’s flat. There will be five of us, and the object is to design a flexible yet rigorous system to stop dishes piling up every night.

It occured to me that this is a highly mathematical problem, requiring some kind of neat optimization given the initial conditions of how many people are in the flat, expected amount of dishes and also number of other things that will need regular cleaning, such as the kitchen, the bathroom and the hallway, not to mention taking the bin out and recycling. Thus, my side project over the next few days will be to devise an algorithm for optimal sharing of cleaning duties given these conditions. I’m sure you’re all excited as to what I’ll come up with, so stay posted. If you have any ideas, please share them. “Buy a dishwasher” is discounted.

EDIT: In over 75 posts, this is the first I have posted in “Maths”. That I have resisted this long is perhaps just short of miraculous.

Except for this: nothing is more satisfying than your supervisor saying you were right. Yes sir. That’s me in a good mood the rest of the week!