Category: math

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This Simple Math Equation Illustrates That If You Want More Pizza, Order 1 Large Pizza, Not 2 Mediums

When you’ve got a lot of people to feed and you’re ordering pies, do you go for two 12-inch mediums instead of one 18-inch large, since 24 inches is bigger and therefore more? If so, you’re not alone.

I totally do this, and I’m guessing that’s exactly what pizza places want you to do (hello, more cash), but thanks to one intrepid Twitter user willing to do the math, we can all make the correct choice and go back to ordering one big pizza, saving ourselves some dough in the process.

Photo Credit: Pixabay

I mean, assuming everyone can agree on toppings. Pepperoni ftw.

If you’re math-challenged like me, you never would have figured this out for yourself, so I’m going to include a little math-splanation below the tweet.

Photo Credit: Twitter

And this guy, who’s finally getting his money’s worth out of that degree:

Photo Credit: Twitter

The diameter of the large pizza is smaller than the combined diameters of the two medium ones, but the large has the bigger total area. In case you slept through geometry, you calculate the area of a circle by squaring the radius (which is half the diameter) and multiplying by pi (3.1415 etc.).

The area of the 18-inch pizza is 254 square inches – a full 28 square inches larger than the area of two 12-inchers, which is 226.

But but but but! If the crust is your favorite part, you might want to take this into consideration – you do get 33.3% more crusty goodness with the two mediums.

Photo Credit: Twitter

Even though the math is technically not that complicated here, the internet’s mind was still collectively blown.

Photo Credit: Twitter

I mean, how could you not be?

Photo Credit: Twitter

It’s almost enough to make you feel sorry for the pizza joint!

But it definitely makes me want to go order a pizza.

The post This Simple Math Equation Illustrates That If You Want More Pizza, Order 1 Large Pizza, Not 2 Mediums appeared first on UberFacts.

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A futurama episode contains…

A Futurama episode contains a real-life mathematical theorem which was specifically made for that episode, making it the first known theorem to be created for the sole purpose of entertainment in a TV show.

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Girls Won the Five Top Prizes in National STEM Contest for Middle Schoolers

As people say, “The future is female.” And that trend was certainly on display recently at the 2019 Broadcom MASTERS competition. The competition, “Math, Applied Science, Technology, and Engineering for Rising Stars,” highlights very bright middle-schoolers and is run by the Society for Science & the Public.

This year, girls won all of the top five prizes awarded at the competition in Washington, D.C. What makes it even more extraordinary is that the five winners were out of a total pool of 2,348 applicants from 47 states. A total of 18 boys and 12 girls were then brought to D.C. to take part in the competition.

While in D.C., the middle-schoolers were given STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) projects to work on in teams. The youngsters were judged on leadership, teamwork, problem solving, and communication. The last 20% of their score was based on the science projects that the kids had applied to the competition with. The panel of judges included engineers, scientists, and educators.

The five winners were:

The Samueli Foundation Prize: $25,000
Alaina Gassler, Improving Automobile Safety by Removing Blindspots

Lemelson Award for Invention: $10,000
Rachel Bergey, Spotted Lanternflies: Stick’em or Trick’em

Marconi/Samueli Award for Innovation: $10,000
Sidor Clare, Bound and Bricked

Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Award for Health Advancement: $10,000
Alexis MacAvoy, Designing Efficient, Low-Cost, Eco-Friendly Activated Carbon for Removal of Heavy Metals from Water

STEM Talent Award, sponsored by DoD STEM: $10,000
Lauren Ejiaga, Ozone Depletion: How it Affects Us

Maya Ajmera, president and CEO of the Society for Science & the Public, said,”We are just so thrilled that the top five winners were girls this year. This is the first time in our history that it was a sweep for girls. It’s also the first time in our history that we had more girl finalists than boy finalists.”

Way to go ladies! Keep your eye on these kids, because they’re going places.

The post Girls Won the Five Top Prizes in National STEM Contest for Middle Schoolers appeared first on UberFacts.

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Do Kids Lose What They Learn over Long Summer Breaks?

The Economist recently proclaimed, “Long summer holidays are bad for children, especially the poor.”

This was not the first time such a claim had been made about how kids lose much of what they’ve learned over the year during breaks from school.

Lawmakers, too, are concerned. Each year, bills introduced at the state level attempt to funnel money into summer education programs.

Photo Credit: Pixabay

Yet, reports from research groups such as the Brookings Institute show more nuanced findings as it relates to summertime learning loss among children.

So, do kids suffer educationally from long summer breaks?

Researcher Abel J. Koury used current and nationally representative data to determine if there truly is a loss of learning during the summer in school children.

Photo Credit: Pexels

Koury estimates only 7 percent of kids lost approximately a month of learning in reading and 9 percent of kids lost in math between kindergarten and first grade. Before second grade, the percentages increase to 15 percent in reading and 18 percent in math. The majority of kids in summertime do not seem to be experiencing any loss of learning. Koury also suggests that not only are kids not experiencing significant learning loss, they are actually increasing their skills over the summer.

Koury also looked into whether loss of learning became a long-term issue, and he determined that the difference between children who experienced summertime loss of learning and children who gained skills was insignificant by the end of the school year.

Photo Credit: Max Pixel

Kids who were already strong in either reading or math were the ones who experienced the most significant loss in learning. Furthermore, homework over the summer did not seem to be a factor in whether kids gained or lost learning.

Koury concluded that letting children get outside and play was more important than worrying about their loss of learning. Summer reading lists are great and can be helpful against loss in that area, but keeping kids active and exercising should be a priority for healthy, happy and intelligent children in the long run.

The post Do Kids Lose What They Learn over Long Summer Breaks? appeared first on UberFacts.

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A brain injury sustained…

A brain injury sustained during a mugging turned a man who used to think “math is stupid” into a mathematical savant with a form of synaesthesia that lets him see the world in fractals.

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A college math professor wrote…

A college math professor wrote a fantasy “novel” workbook to teach the fundamentals of calculus. Concepts are taught through the adventures of a man who has washed ashore in the mystic land of Carmorra and the hero helps people faced with difficult mathematical problems.

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Lewis Fry Richardson derived…

Lewis Fry Richardson derived many of the complex equations needed for weather prediction in the 1920’s. However, the math was so difficult that to predict the weather six hours in advance, it took him six weeks to do the calculations.