Math can explain anything!

What is the temperature going to be tomorrow? Math problem.
When do you need an oil change? Math problem.
Why do serial killers kill?  Math problem?

From Fox News:


Math formula may explain why serial killers kill
Researchers have discovered that the seemingly erratic behavior of the "Rostov Ripper," a prolific serial killer active in the 1980s, conformed to the same mathematical pattern obeyed by earthquakes, avalanches, stock market crashes and many other sporadic events. The finding suggests an explanation for why serial killers kill.

Mikhail Simkin and Vwani Roychowdhury, electrical engineers at the University of California, Los Angeles, modeled the behavior of Andrei Chikatilo, a gruesome murderer who took the lives of 53 people in Rostov, Russia between 1978 and 1990. Though Chikatilo sometimes went nearly three years without committing murder, on other occasions, he went just three days. The researchers found that the seemingly random spacing of his murders followed a mathematical distribution known as a power law.

Where exactly are we?

Math was in the news again this week, this time old math.  Astronaut Jim Lovell auctioned off the notebook he made his Apollo 13 calculations to save the crippled space craft.  I wonder if he used a solar calculator?  (*audience groans*)

It's been pretty hard to track down exactly what these "calculations" were.  An internet search of the terms "OG, IG, and MG" have proven pretty fruitless to me.  They do seem to be coordinates though.  On Earth we use the two-dimensional system of longitude and latitude but in space they would need three, an x, y, & z.

I did find a real treat of a website that would make any math junkie happy:  Orbital Mechanics where Robert  Braeuing uses real Apollo 11 data to calculate their exact position.




I noticed that the writing is all in pencil and thought it was because the space pen hadn't been invented yet.  The Fisher Space Pen  (great gift idea) was invented in the 1960s and they were present on the Apollo 13 flight.  I guess Lovell just preferred to do his math with an eraser.

Could you do the math needed to make the calculations and save your shuttle?

A Picture of a Percentage

Percentages used to be the norm for explaining how a whole was broken into parts.  Well, they still are except you don't get the % sign as much.  This chart doesn't have any percentages listed on it but it's still the same as a pie chart.  You also don't have to have a legend box.  I'm sure they have a special name but I don't know what it is.

From Washington Post, released by Blue Shield of California: