When it comes to calculating pi, two wrongs might make a right onlinecollegedegreee.blogspot.com

onlinecollegedegreee.blogspot.com When it comes to calculating pi, two wrongs might make a right

A great deal of time has been spent working out the facts about pi. At one point, the "facts" were wrong. And a mathematician caught the error by using something that, well, might also be wrong.

Calculating the value of pi has proved a headache for many a mathematician. Today, we leave it up to the computers, as well we should. It's a detailed and laborious process that can, and has, taken years to discover and work through. Which isn't to say no one tried. For hundreds of years, people tried to work pi out to a greater and greater degree of accuracy. The record, up until 1853, was 440 decimal places. William Shanks, with a great deal of work, shattered the record, taking pi out to 707 decimal places.

Or did he? Another mathematician Augustus de Morgan, took a look at Shanks' work and found it faulty. He hadn't calculated pi. He hadn't even tried. He'd just calculated the number of times each numeral appeared in the value for pi that Shanks had published. If the numbers were appearing at random, and evenly distributed throughout pi's decimal places, the number 7 would appear 61 times. It appeared a mere 44 times. It was underrepresented.

The math world could have turned and said, "So what?" Some mathematicians did. Nothing had been proved to show that all the digits - 0 through 9 - should appear equally in any calculation of pi. De Morgan, however, couldn't shake the idea that Shanks was wrong. The effort to calculate pi was so herculean that neither lived to see the resolution of their dispute. In 1946, a computer worked away at a calculation of pi, and found that Shanks went wrong at the 528th decimal place. So he still beat the record, but by far less than he thought he had. This is interesting, as the idea that all the numerals should appear equally in the decimal places after pi has still not been demonstrated. De Morgan used something that, for all we know, is wrong, to cast correct doubt on something that for all anyone knew was right.

[Via Magnificent Mistakes in Mathematics, The Penguin Dictionary of Curious and Interesting Numbers]

onlinecollegedegreee.blogspot.com When it comes to calculating pi, two wrongs might make a right

These spiders build statues of themselves using leaves and dead bugs onlinecollegedegreee.blogspot.com

onlinecollegedegreee.blogspot.com These spiders build statues of themselves using leaves and dead bugs

Did you know that there is a spider that spends its time building lifelike spider effigies out of discarded leaves, twigs, and dead insect bodies? Now, however frightened you are, take that and multiply it by two. Because there are actually two entirely separate species of spiders, both independently building spider effigies.

Wired reports on the two species, one found in Peru by entomologist Phil Torres (whose work you may remember from these past mysterious spider constructions) and the other in the Philippines by entomologist Larry Reeves.

Finding two spiders that make such similar designs, 11,000 miles apart, has left scientists wondering how the behavior evolved and if the decoys serve as lures for prey or as an anti-predator defense system. The discoveries also suggest there may be even more sculpting arachnids. You just have to know what to look for.

What you look for, it turns out, is a really, really big fake-spider, with an even smaller spider sitting right at its center (which is where the spiders sometimes like to hang out after construction is compete).

Of course, the discovery of the two species raises some interesting questions about the evolutionary processes that led the spiders to spider-decoy construction. It also raises the question of just how many more of these things there might be out there. The answer, say scientists, is perhaps very, very many:

It's also possible that similar predation pressures have driven an example of convergent evolution, in which both species independently found it beneficial to construct grand, spidery illusions. Because the decoys are so large, it does seem as though the structures are more likely playing a defensive role. Reeves and Torres don't yet know why two spiders, a world apart, are building decoys in their webs. But they do think it's likely that undiscovered decoy-building spiders are sculpting false arachnids in trees all over the world.

"I don't think it's surprising that this happening," Reeves said. "I think that no one's noticed in the past is surprising."

Video: Smarter Every Day

onlinecollegedegreee.blogspot.com These spiders build statues of themselves using leaves and dead bugs

Safe sex means not having sex with the Cat People onlinecollegedegreee.blogspot.com

onlinecollegedegreee.blogspot.com Safe sex means not having sex with the Cat People

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Pregnancy? STDs? Pshaw. The real danger of having intercourse is the possibility that the person you're having sex with might turn into a panther and kill you, as Paul Schrader's erotic 1982 remake of the 1942 horror classic Cat People reveals. Plus, the Machete, Leonard Nimoy, and the best Robocop ever, all in this week's DVDs!

• Robocop 4K Remastered Edition

Before you dismiss this as yet another double-dip, this new edition of Robocop may be worth getting, no matter how many copies you already own It's the unrated director's cut with a brand new transfer that supposedly looks gorgeous, several new features in addition to many classic ones, and it's selling for, no foolin' $8.

• Machete Kills

This sequel does what it says on the tin. Contains a making of, deleted and extended scenes, but I'm not sure if it has Machete Kills Again in Space on it.

• Cat People

Natassja Kinski comes to America to find her long-lost brother Malcom MacDowell, but instead discovers her sexuality and her curse.

• Never Sleep Again: The Elm Street Legacy

Basically, this has every Nightmare Before Elm Street DVD extra you could possibly want... it's just the movies that aren't included. Seriously, you'll have to hit the link to see all of them.

• Lord of the Rings: The Motion Picture Trilogy

Where you waiting to buy the Lord of the Rings trilogy when you could get the movies for $5.66 each, just without any extras whatsoever? Then January 21st is your lucky day.

• Die, Monster, Die

A verrrrrry loose 1965 adaptation of H.P. Lovecraft's short story "The Color Out of Space", now on Blu-ray.

• My Little Pony: Classic Movie Collection

Containing Princess Promenade, Dancing in the Clouds, Runaway Rainbow, and Friends Are Never Far Away, and truly straining the definition of the word "classic."

• Bad Milo

Easily the finest film about monsters living in people's asses since Dreamcatcher, and Dreamcatcher didn't star Community's Gillian Jacobs.

• Blue Submarine No. 6: Complete Collection

The semi-hit Toonami anime comes to Blu-ray. When the polar ice caps melt and creatures from the sea attack the surface, this state-of-the-art sub is humanity's last hope.

• Baffled!

A 1973 horror anthology that features Leonard Nimoy as a badass racecar driver who receives a disturbing vision at 140mph.

• Thanatomorphose

A young lady is somewhat perturbed to discover her flesh is rotting off.

• Gingerdead Man Vs. Evil Bong

There is nothing I can say about this movie that the DVD cover doesn't say one million times better.

• Iron Girl

Like Iron Man, but set in Japan, starring a girl not a man, with 1/100th of the budget, and more boobs.

• Zombie Pirates

"A dangerous young woman (Sarah French) offers up human sacrifices to a ghost ship of the dead in return for an ancient treasure. When she comes up one sacrifice short, her zombie masters exact their bloody revenge in this gory tribute to Spain's popular Blind Dead Euro Horror series." Sure, why not?

onlinecollegedegreee.blogspot.com Safe sex means not having sex with the Cat People

McDonalds thinks Adventure Time is just for boys onlinecollegedegreee.blogspot.com

onlinecollegedegreee.blogspot.com McDonalds thinks Adventure Time is just for boys

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McDonalds has made a huge mistake. The fast-food chain just revealed its new Adventure Time Happy Meal line, which conveniently cut out all the female characters. But don't worry girls, McDonald's also has some Paul Frank crap that's pink because Adventure Time is for boys, apparently.

McDonalds has been making gender-centric Happy Meal toys forever, but this time they've gone too far. On January 17th the burger juggernaut will be gifting Adventure Time toys with each Happy Meal purchase. And as you can see from the toys available, all the girl characters were deemed unworthy of a toy (or any mention at all). Where is Lumpy Space Princess, Marceline the Vampire Queen, Tree Trunks, and more importantly WHERE IS PRINCESS BUBBLEGUM?

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This is terrible. And, quite honestly, an affront to the very thing that Adventure Time represents. This is a show that had no problem gender swapping the main characters, and did it with panache. The food franchise has offered up a lot of pink Paul Frank merchandise (like a journal) as the girl option. No, thanks. We demand a Fiona and Cake collectable.

[via Serious Eats]

onlinecollegedegreee.blogspot.com McDonalds thinks Adventure Time is just for boys