I’m sure you know that next Thursday, the UK is going to have a general election. And I’m also pretty sure that you’re sick of hearing about it all over the media. Random interviews with MPs spewing out generic garbage litter the news channels. It’s worse than a playground squabble. Something that is as important as you helping to decide the future of the UK has, as usual, been trivialised into some X Factor-esque popularity contest. I know what my […]
Out of all of the various areas and branches of economics, none has captured my interest more than ‘behavioural economics’. This studies the links between psychology and economics to try to discover more about how the individual thinks when faced with decisions. It brings to light the irrationality of the human being, and the flaws of many classical economic models, which assume rational behaviour at all times. Israeli psychologist Daniel Kahneman was one of the pioneers of this field of […]
Japan have been struggling for some time with poor aggregate demand in their economy. The interest rate has been near zero (and actually zero at some points) for a very long time to try and stimulate borrowing and investment. I saw an interesting programme on NHK World (Japanese news channel) a few weeks ago. It was about consumption and consumer attitudes in Japan. Lots of things both surprised and intrigued me, such as the fact that the youth of Japan […]
In the world of digital entertainment, some games have transcended the boundaries and managed to create artistic, intelligent and immersive experiences that cannot be matched. I thought I’d sit down and think about the computer games that have had the biggest impact – on me and the gaming world. Here are my top 20 games of all time. 20. Worms: Armageddon (PC – 1999) Probably the most innovative multiplayer strategy game ever made. The Worms series throws teams of up […]
Before we get down to the maths, let me digress to explain why there is a still from BBC’s motoring magazine Top Gear at the top of this page. In the last few series of the show, I have noticed an interesting tendency for BBC to include attractive women in the camera shot whilst the presenters are sitting in the foreground. The image above shows a prime example of this. Whether this is a conscious attempt at subliminal messaging targeted […]
Modes. They seem to be difficult for many musicians to get the hang of. Fortunately, I’ve found that the easiest way to understand them and to explain them lies in a nice bit of maths. A quick note on Cycles Cycles are a neat piece of mathematics, lying as a part of permutations within the realms of combinatorics and algebra. Despite its simple nature, it has very powerful applications. Let me give you a short introduction. A permutation of a […]
Elasto Mania became a cult classic game around 8 years ago when I was in high school. It swept our school network (and many others) like a class A drug – you know it will suck you into its world, but the draw of being there is too strong to resist. Not that I have any experience with narcotics, mind. It was created by independent Hungarian developer Balázs Rózsa in 2000 – someone who surely has earned the respect of […]
Maths and music. Probably my two favourite subjects, and yet, two things that are often considered as mutually exclusive. But this is very, very far from the truth. Much research has been done to show that logicians and mathematicians are often very talented musicians. History also supports this fact (I have linked to a couple of interesting articles at the end of this one that go into more detail about this). There are more direct mathematical links to be found […]
One of my favourite proofs in the maths world is actually a very simple one. The reason that I love it so much is that it highlights the difficulty us humans face when trying to understand the concept of “infinity”. Everything that we know of seems to have a beginning and an end. We die after a finite period of time. Pluto is extremely far away, but it is a finite distance away, meaning that it can be reached given […]
Spoiler warning: There isn’t much of a story to be revealed anyway, but if you still want to watch this film (which I strongly advise against – for your sake not mine), then stop reading now. I’m not much of a cinema person (I don’t even watch many films unless they’ve been out for years and achieved near-classic status). The whole idea seems like a complete waste of money to me. Yet last night I thought it might be nice […]
A Quick Introduction to Basal Numbers Our number system has evolved a lot over the years, but for a while now, we have established the base 10 number system (the decimal system) as being the norm. It’s great because calculation becomes very easy due to it being something our brains can deal with quite efficiently. Base 10 means that each position in a written number represents a quantity of a specific power of 10. We start from the right hand […]