This I Know I Think
Life on the verge of understanding

## Who would have thought

January 3, 2019 Categories: Uncategorized. Tags: maths.

I came across an interesting video on YouTube that described an unusual way of estimating ⅓ of a number of items, or of a length, although that probably isn’t something most of us need to do much of the time. I was intrigued by the simplicity of the method, and of the underlying rationale for […]

## Another beautiful equation

October 16, 2018 Categories: maths. Tags: maths.

Here’s another example of a mathematical identity that is almost magical: $$\frac {\pi} {4} = 1 – \frac{1}{3} + \frac{1}{5} – \frac{1}{7} +…$$ The beauty lies in the apparent simplicity of this, along with the fundamental question of why the interminable expression on the right results in increasingly better approximations to $\pi$.

## More mathematical beauty

August 15, 2018 Categories: maths.

YouTube now routinely recommends videos to watch based, it says, on my browsing history. I’m not convinced that the algorithm is all that accurate, although so far, at least, I haven’t been offered anything that is completely unconnected with what I might be interested in. Yesterday I was pushed towards a video discussing Euler’s equation. […]