Monthly Archives: December 2019

Best Use of Maths award, 2019

Throughout 2019, maths has been used in a multitude of manners, and the world in which we live would be very different without the application of mathematics. But one use of the subject stands out above all others, and is worthy of a “Best Use of Maths 2019” award. The comedian – and now mathematical […]

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Wales replaced by football pitches

“About the area of Wales …”  Wales has often been used as an informal measurement of area, but in the Royal Statistical Society Statistic of the decade, they have forsaken Wales as an area of measurement, replacing it with (the much smaller) football pitch. The estimated accumulated deforestation of the Amazon rainforest, over the past […]

Posted in Handling Data | Leave a comment

Stats of the Year 2019

Regular readers will know that I like my stats. I like them because they, sometimes, confirm what we suspect or, because, sometimes, they tell us things we didn’t know. And I particularly like them not because they answer a question, but they typically prompt another question – why? Today is an important day. Today is […]

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General Election 2019 in 3 charts

Whether or not it gives us a good government is a question I leave for you. But what a general election does give us is data and I like data. So I crunched some numbers and came up with the three charts, above. I haven’t included any numbers as I quite like the aesthetic look […]

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Powers, answer books and Mrs Krabapple moments

There is an episode of The Simpsons* when, frustrated with her teacher’s reliance on the answer book, Lisa steals all of the “Teacher’s Editions”, denying staff access to the answers and, soon, chaos, confusion and panic reigns in the staff room. Of course, we teachers can get by without the mark scheme, but, for expediency of […]

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