math and statistics puzzles

How have I managed so long without the Online Encyclopedia of Integer Sequences?  Read all about it. Tip from The Geek Press. Read more

John Cook has a very nice article on approximations from infinite series, based on sin Ө ≈ Ө. Read more

Martin Gardner is gone.  They don’t make ’em him any more. Tip from the Geek Press. Update (28 May). Brian Hayes has a short appreciation. ( Tip from Numbers Rule Your World), as does  John Derbyshire.  Ed Pegg describes some Gardner-inspired Mathematica demonstrations. Read more

This is a solution to this. Read more

Maximize this score. Read more

It seems that Lewis Carroll was satirizing the New Math when he wrote Alice.Tip from Ann Coulter. Read more

Seemingly out of the blue, Iowahawk gives a hands-on explanation of the "computer polls" for the BCS rankings.  Now you–and your Excel spreadsheet–can do it at home. Read more

Apparently they don’t teach fractions in Massachusetts these days.Tip from the Geek Press. Read more

Try this! Read more

Freakonomics has a neat story about a kid who convinced his parents to make exponentially increasing Tooth Fairy payments: 1 cent for the first tooth, 2 cents for the next, doubling every time.  His folks agreed, with the stipulation that every payment after $10.24 goes into his college savings account.  So here’s the question:  how Read more