“A study using census data from nine countries shows that religion there is set for extinction… The study found a steady rise in those claiming no religious affiliation. The team’s mathematical model attempts to account for the interplay between the number of religious respondents and the social motives behind being one.”

The countries studied were Australia, Austria, Canada, the Czech Republic, Finland, Ireland, the Netherlands, New Zealand and Switzerland. I didn’t really raise an eyebrow looking through that list until I got to Ireland – Ireland? Really? I’m not a mathematician or a statistician, so I can’t really give an opinion on their method of analysis, but the trends as they currently stand are pretty unambiguous.

The UK census is currently being taken (mine is sitting on the floor next to me, I’ve been avoiding it for days), but Question 20 (“What is your religion?”) is voluntary (as well as incredibly presumptive and badly worded), so it remains to be seen whether the group will (or will be able to) apply the same analysis to UK data, but I shall wait with interest to find out.

In the meantime, I put it to the multinational UF family: What do people from those countries think about the predictions? Accurate and incisive or foolish and flawed?

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(via Scotteriology)

With this in mind, you can appreciate the Rhind Mathematical Papyrus and similar documents that contain a series of math puzzles for the edification of ancient Egyptians. The Rhind Papyrus contains a variation on the puzzle of sevens (“A man has seven wives, each wife has seven bags, each bag has seven cats …”), which is still used today to teach exponents.

Of course, in the ancient world there was always another level. Writing itself was a magical act of creation, and puzzle solving may have provided insight into the nature of the universe. The NYT quotes the author of the Rhind Papyrus, who claims that he provides the “correct method of reckoning, for grasping the meaning of things and knowing everything that is, obscurities and all secrets.”

Incidentally, the Rhind Papyrus sets the value of Pi at about 3.16, which is better than the Bible’s value of 3.

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(A music video for Jonathan Coulton’s song Mandelbrot Set by Pisut Wisessing made in Film 324: Cornell Summer Animation Workshop, taught by animator Lynn Tomlinson every summer for Cornell’s summer session, in the department of Theatre, Film & Dance.)

(Note from Florien: Since I’m a capitalist, this does not reflect my views.)

I saw this video a few years back and was thinking about it today; it’s basically a mathematics lecture which proves that capitalism cannot work for very much longer as the dominant socio-economic system and why if it does we’re all absolutely screwed.

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This simple mathematical lecture explains everything from peak oil to the population explosion. Hope y’all enjoy and it makes you think!

Incidentally, I know that there’s a risk of apocalyptic Christians abusing this post, but hey, they’re idiots so I don’t care :-)

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This is the same as Margin Gardner’s Three Prisoners problem, and is based on the earlier Bertrand’s box paradox (also known as the ”three-card swindle”).

It’s a good reminder that our intuition isn’t always reliable.

(via)