Maths

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Patterns, chance and the numbers hiding in everyday things.

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Why no walk can cross all seven bridges of Königsberg once: Euler's odd-places rule Seven bridges, two islands, two river banks: in 1700s Königsberg nobody could find a walk crossing each bridge exactly once. Euler didn't search harder, he… Maths4 min read Why random dice rolls draw a perfect fractal: the chaos game and the Sierpiński triangle Pick three dots, then keep jumping halfway towards a randomly chosen one. It sounds like it should leave a grey smudge, but after a few thousand jumps a… Maths3 min read Why a dropped stick can find π: Buffon's needle Drop a stick on a floor of planks and count how often it lands across a seam. The count secretly contains π: for a needle as long as the plank width, the… Maths4 min read Why random bounces pile up into a bell curve: the Galton board Every ball in a Galton board makes the same blind choice at each peg: left or right, a coin flip. Yet drop enough of them and the pile always grows into the… Maths4 min read 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… Maths3 min read