Newsletter 20
A Further Five Numbers
4 August, 2005
http://www.simonsingh.net
1. A Further Five Numbers
2. Big Bang in Paperback
3. Theatre of Science
4. Free Books...
5. The plural of anecdote...
6. Puzzle Competition
7. Competition Winner
8. Incredible Scottish Illusion
1. A Further Five Numbers
I am disappearing to the Edinburgh Festival for much of
August, so here is some advance notice about my new radio
series, “A Further Five Numbers”. I will be taking a look
at numbers such as 6 (as in six degrees of separation) and
1729 (Ramanujan’s taxicab number). The series starts on
BBC Radio 4 on Tuesday 23 August at 9.30am, and you can
listen online at:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/
Radio 4 is the world’s greatest radio station, so if
you live outside the UK then I would encourage you to
visit the website and listen to some of the archived
programmes. The comedy and science sections are great, and
in the A-Z section you can access my previous series,
namely “Five Numbers”, “Another Five Numbers” and “The
Serendipity of Science”.
2. Big Bang in Paperback
“Big Bang” is out now in paperback in the UK, Australia
and New Zealand. I am cutting down on my lecturing, but I
will be talking about the Big Bang in Edinburgh and
Dublin, and you can find more details at:
http://www.simonsingh.net/Simon_Lectures.html
3. Theatre of Science
I have just finished a sell-out run of Theatre of
Science with Richard Wiseman at the Soho Theatre. We
extended the run, sold out, extended the run, and sold out
again. Thanks to everyone who came along and helped make
the show a success. Richard and I are working out how to
take the show outside London and I will let you know our
future plans via the newsletter. In the meantime, you can
see me getting zapped by a million volts and find out more
about the most recent show on the pages below:
http://www.simonsingh.net/ToS_Simon_Zapped.html
http://www.simonsingh.net/2005_Show.html
4. Free Books ...
... as long as you can read Serbian. I have six
editions of “Fermaova Poslednja Teorema” by Sajmon Sing to
send to the first six people who email me at freebooks@simonsingh.net
with subject “Serbian Fermat” and giving me your address
in the body of the email. If you do not receive a book
within the next 14 days then you were unfortunately not
one of the names out of the hat.
5. The plural of anecdote ...
... is not data.
(Roger Brinner, economist)
6. Puzzle Competition
This puzzle is based on the new maths game Nubble! The
game gives you 4 numbers and you have to derive a target
number using the basic operations ofaddition, subtraction,
multiplication and division. For example, how do you make
the number 40 from 1, 3, 4 and 6?
The answer is (6 + 4) x (3 + 1) = 40.
Your challenge is to make the number 1 from the numbers
1, 1, 1 and 5, and you MUST use all four numbers.
Send your answer to nubblepuzzle@simonsingh.net – put
your formula in the subject header and your address in the
body of the email. The closing date for entries is 8
August. One of the correct entries will win a copy of the
excellent “Backroom Boys – the Secret Return of the
British Boffin” by Francis Spufford.
And you can find out more about Nubble! or download a
free demo version on these webpages:
http://www.virtualimage.co.uk/html/nubble.htm
http://www.virtualimage.co.uk/html/download.html
7. Competition Winner
In the last newsletter, I asked you to tell me how many
strokes of the razor I made when shaving that morning. The
answer was 150 strokes, but I accepted any answer between
100 and 200 strokes.
Apologies to those who were unable to enter due to lack
of facial hair or an abundance of it. Some people were
concerned that it was a pointless and impossible question,
but I wanted to show that our intuition and memory can
mislead us. Most people initially guessed that the answer
was about 25 strokes, but 24 hours later I received lots
of correct entries, because people had conducted an
experiment. I suppose I was trying to show the power of
experiment over guesswork, memory and intuition.
The winners, who will receive copies of my books, are
Jimmy Sprague in Washington, Cristian Stefan from Romania,
Peter Selmeczy from Hampshire, Fraser Crosbie from
Reading, Eric Nelson-Melby from Arizona and Jany Sabins
from New Jersey.
8. Incredible Scottish Illusion
As I am going to be spending most of my summer holidays
in Scotland, I thought I would leave you with an
incredible optical illusion created in Glasgow by the
artist Julian Beever. It is an example of anamorphic
pavement art and you need to view it from two sides, so
you will need to visit both of the pages below.
http://users.skynet.be/J.Beever/swim.htm
http://users.skynet.be/J.Beever/wrongview.htm
Have a great summer,
Simon.
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