Maths
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Patterns, chance and the numbers hiding in everyday things.
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How dropping needles on a floor reveals the number π: Buffon's needle
Toss a match onto a plank floor and ask: does it touch a crack? Do it thousands of times and the fraction that do will quietly spell out π, though no circle is…
Why seven shuffles are enough to mix a deck of cards
A 52-card deck can be put in about 8 × 10^67 different orders, yet a few quick shuffles leave a lot of the old order behind. In 1992 Dave Bayer and Persi…