While I’ve never been much of a fan of mathematics, there are times when it has its uses. Take for example the measuring cup or the yardstick. Without the discovery and development of a numbering system, mankind would never have…
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Television news programs often run surveys where they invite their viewing audience to participate in some silly poll by texting their opinions (at 99 cents per message) to the number they provide. Then the news programs show the results and…
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Stats and probability in Mathematics is often used for recording and forecasting. The stats themselves are more recorded for reference, while the probability or likelihood is more for forecasting. So, let us first consider statistics. Statistics really refers to recorded…
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Mathematics is independent of experience. “How can it be that mathematics, being after all a product of human thought which is independent of experience, is so admirably appropriate to the objects of reality?” So Albert Einstein said. He, of course,…
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We live in a world in which we are constantly surrounded by data – counts, figures, lengths, colors, etcetera. With such an enormous amount of data penetrating our lives, how do we make sense of it? This is where the…
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You know the one about lies, damn lies and statistics? The famous Mark Twain quip remains as valid today as it was in his time, and possibly even more so. Statistical, or pseudo-statistical data abound in the media, books and…
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Artificial Neural Networks Neural Networks are one of the three main knowledge based systems. The others being AI (Artificial Intelligence), Fuzzy Systems, as well as hybrid systems. Neural Networks try to mimic humanlike rationalization. Inspired to reproduce the reasoning and processing…
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Mean, median, mode, first quartile, third quartile; all these are parts of the measures of central tendency. Some of these are easy to find no matter how many data pieces there are, others are much more difficult, even with only…
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Fermat’s Last Theorem(This article draws on the excellent paperback, Fermat’s Enigma” by Simon Singh.)I begin with a riddle: Three Navajo women sit side by side on the ground. The first woman, who is sitting on a buffalo skin, has a…
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Finding the Area of Any Quadrilateral Quadrilaterals are four-sided, two-dimensional figures. There are numerous formulas that are taught for computing their areas, but they can all be found from a single source. Any quadrilateral can be divided into two triangles…
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