Insane Math Facts That You Won’t Believe are True

[@Sideprojects]

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[@CHE-Undercover]

its math not maths, you silly brit. Go drink your tea and eat your crumpets and dont give me no crap about how british english is the true english. You guys lost that right when you had to call on america to win the world wars. lol

[@peterwale6821]

Would infinity divided by infinity equal Pi?

[@Dutchreason]

Is Surfshark better than Nord-VPN?

[@TheOnceMoreGaming]

Downvote since you used an inappropriate abbreviation for MATHEMATICS. It is MATH. You do not PLURALIZE an ABBREVIATION of a PLURAL. Not even in British English. Why can't the English learn to speak? - Prof Higgins.

[@chickenwings6172]

Math

[@bwedesign]

The $1 and $20 problem reminds me of this question: what weighs more - a ton of feathers or a ton of bricks?

[@halifornia2001]

The ton of feathers. Bricks are bricks. But if you have a ton of feathers, you also have to carry the weight of what you did to those poor birds.

[@20Unknown]

​@@halifornia2001Nice.

[@BullScrapPracEff]

What are the bricks made of? 😉

[@Denpachii]

@@BullScrapPracEff Feathers.

[@rptrm82]

I’ve been asked whether I’d rather have a ton of feathers or a tone of bricks dropped on me. It’s certainly the feathers. Assuming they aren’t compacted, they’ll disperse and become harmless. Either way, the feathers are softer.

[@ApothecaryTerry]

If you want to witness exponential growth, just take out a payday loan...

[@MrMancreatedgod]

I did thumbs you up but unfortunately I think you're missing your target audience

[@yo388]

Or watch Nancy Pelosi’s stock portfolio 😂

[@ApothecaryTerry]

@@MrMancreatedgod My target audience should probably be people who take out payday loans, but I feel like they're unlikely to listen to me for financial advice, even if that was sensible 😄

[@Pivara-t9w]

​​@@yo388or the number of anti democracy Americans after 8 years of having a black man president. Shouldn't you be on a flat earth or creationism channel?

[@Felled-angel]

​@@ApothecaryTerrythe reason he said it is uk law caped loans at 0.8% interest a day effectively driving them out of business and if you are getting a loan in tne UK from the loans companies that are left it's not that expensive.

[@Moscatinka]

I'm not greedy, I'll take an infinite amount of pennies.

[@jochenstacker7448]

You'll be fairly unpopular at the bank or the shops. 😂🖖

[@erickhart8046]

The copper alone would be worth it.

[@coreymartin6363]

I'll bet I can spend all of my infinite nickels faster

[@gungasc]

Gonna see you spend hours at that green sorting machine.

[@Spoodabandit]

@@gungasc lol 30% of the infinite pennies will be spit back out

[@bobingabout]

I remember when I was in primary school. I used to sit next to somebody who was not only had the same birthday with me, but was born in the same room in the hospital.

[@12000gp]

Are you a twin?

[@bobingabout]

@@12000gp No.

[@freddiemercury2075]

What are the chances ???

[@nialeemaria]

Not that wild, actually. My son has a friend like that. Most hospitals have multiple births per day, and local babies are going to end up at the same school.

[@u3pyg]

Same. Our mothers knew each other from there. We were in same class since primary school all the way till end of high school. Then we were in the army in one room too :)

[@pamelamays4186]

Wednesday Addams: The baby weighs 20 pounds. The canon ball weighs 20 pounds. Which one will hit the ground first? Pugsley Addams: I'm still on fractions.

[@trayolphia5756]

But which will bounce?

[@johannesvanderhorst9778]

It depends if the mother is around. If so, the cannon ball will hit the ground first, because the mother tries to catch the baby.

[@trayolphia5756]

@@johannesvanderhorst9778 guessing you haven’t seen ‘Addams family values’…? Cos it was Gomez, the dad, who caught the baby by a fluke of timing…

[@Scott-i9v2s]

I am more interested in which will get squashed...

[@hedlund]

I like that there are distinct types of infinities, with distinct characteristics. The realms of pure math are positively wild.

[@gregbors8364]

To infinity… and beyond!

[@randomtagr.t591]

​@@gregbors8364Sorry... Which infinity exactly?

[@facetubetwit1444]

You can imagine anything you like to be true but here in the real world infinity dose not exist.

[@hedlund]

@@facetubetwit1444 Are you trying to argue some sort of philosophical point or are you just trolling? Uninspiring, if the latter.

[@facetubetwit1444]

@@hedlund Bruh if you can prove True infinity you will win a Nobel prize. this infinite is akin to perpetual motion machines which it not how the universe works, But having said that it's ok for you to believe i am not trying to take that away from you, Heck their are people who believe in Easter bunny and Santa clause so it is perfectly ok for to believe in magic as well.

[@bodan1196]

I was a little surprised that the last topic of exponential growth, didn't mention a very old description using the doubling the numbers of graiins of rice for each square on a chessboard.

[@TheKrispyfort]

Was told this story in year 5 😂

[@desperadox7565]

@@TheKrispyfort Was told this story when I was 5.🤣

[@pamelamays4186]

Another insane math fact: an infinite number of scriptwriters can fit into the Blazement.

[@DesAstora]

I'm shocked fact boi didn't mention the amount of possible combinations for a well shuffled deck of cards.

[@DroidAssembly]

he was probably just on autopilot not caring about what he was reading 😂

[@yobgodababua1862]

That's a good one. The most interesting way I've heard it put is that, if every grain of sand on earth were an earth covered in sand, and each of those grains of sand were an earth covered in sand, the chances of encountering the same perfectly shuffled deck of cards twice is MUCH LESS LIKELY that the chances of randomly picking the same grain of sand twice from the sand-earths of the sand-earths.

[@bandit5875]

@@yobgodababua1862huh?

[@100percentSNAFU]

It's (52!) Vsauce did a good video on this. He said you could walk around the earth at the equator, take a drop of water out of the ocean and set it aside, then walk around again and again taking one drop each time. When the oceans were completely dry the amount of years it took you to do this wouldn't even be close to how many years it would take you to shuffle the same ordered deck twice.

[@yobgodababua1862]

​@@100percentSNAFU It's interesting because 52 factorial is both something you can hold in one hand (a deck of cards) and also a just almost unfathomably large number (~8*10^67). Tthe idea that it's extremely unlikely that any two games of cards (poker, solitaire, etc) have ever been played with the same cards in the same order makes people's brains hurt.

[@asylumental]

I dont connect with numbers, but i respect them. I wish i was better with them, but they just scramble my brain when i try to understand formulas.

[@n.v.9000]

Give an example of a formula you struggle with... once you learn what symbols are and what is their value it is quite easy... if you don't understand what order of calculations you should do, then you just need to learn that also... there is no need for connection to numbers if you have learned the rest... if you didn't learn that, bad exuses aren't what you should share online

[@keith_5584]

Thats really not uncommon, but also very much a gigantic flaw with education systems currently. Teaching you random formulas without a practical uses is a gamble if you are ever going to remember it. It is true it makes it easier to relearn it, but that doesnt justify wasting your time. "When are where are we going to use this?" Detention for your insolence! Instead of, ok class we are going to use the Pythagorean theorem today to make triangles out of wood. Doesnt even have to be real wood, but if your brain marks it as useful, you will retain the information longer.

[@n.v.9000]

@@keith_5584 In school we would get cordinates where the points are... then we would have to draw it on a paper in 3D and then make it in workshop out of wood... or get a piece of some geometrical wooden thing and reverse enginner it to get cordinates... I went to a plumbers high school in Croatia from 2004-2007... I never had a collage education... we also made our own simple tools like hammers and chizels esc... we had to have drawings, mesurments, plan of work writen in special leather bound notebooks we had for everything we produced and if something we made that was working on steam or hydraulic's then we would have to predict the force and pressure of it plus know materials and their strong and weak points

[@keith_5584]

@@n.v.9000 Seems just a bit extreme, but favorable. Did it help, or did you end up in detention anyway? Appreciate the share.

[@n.v.9000]

@@keith_5584 it helped a lot... it isnt extreme if you want to go later in life for an engineer... it is if you gonna lay down some pipes... but they covered us... but all subjects were like that... we didn't have a concept of detention and it is a creepy concept... but we also never gave a plegde to the flag or country... different prioreties look like... we needed educated young people, Usa needs soldiers

[@ignitionfrn2223]

0:55 - Chapter 1 - The birthday problem 2:15 - Mid roll ads 3:40 - Back to the video 5:45 - Chapter 2 - 1+1=2 9:25 - Chapter 3 - 0,999...=1 11:50 - Chapter 4 - Infinite 1$ = Infinite 20$ 14:40 - Chapter 5 - Folding paper to the moon PS:"The number of balls can only increase" indeed.

[@cody5535]

For the Ross-Littlewood paradox, another way to convince yourself that the box is empty is by contradiction- Assume after the process is completed, you pull a ping-pong ball from the box. Whatever the number on the ball is, you know you would have had to put the square of that number in the box already, so that ball shouldn't be in the box if the process has been done properly. As the number on the ball was arbitrary, any ball you pick shouldn't be in the box- hence no ball should be in the box.

[@Censeo]

Good point. Another point. What makes it seem impossible to be empty is the fact that it is construed as an operational process and those can't be done as they will have an arbitrarily large number of steps and not an infinite number of steps.

[@andymouse]

This just showed me how bad I am with numbers as I didn't get any of it with the exception of the folding bit....cheers.

[@multiyapples]

Same.

[@AbramSF]

I appreciate the 2+2=Fish Fairly Odd Parents reference.

[@the80hdgaming]

Thank you.. I thought I was the only one who caught that one... 😂😂😂

[@Thailand_Dan]

Thought it was from The Big Short.

[@marckfabyancic4287]

I had a teacher talk about .999...= 1 over 50 years ago and she used the 'fraction' example to do it, too, man!

[@stevenqu3]

Video title: "Math" Simon: "Maths"

[@wolfsmoke6053]

He even did a video proving Math was correct over Maths but still pronounces it incorrectly

[@Umby8915]

Thank God I'm not the only one annoyed by this... I personally hear "mass" though...

[@EnWorks]

It’s not “stat” for statistics. So it shouldn’t be “math” for mathematics. Yet another American laziness.

[@TribalMatriarch]

I remember my first day in RE ( religious education) the teacher picked 4 people at random out of the class of 30 to do a bit on astrology and star signs, it turned out that all 4 of us had the same birthday!

[@Sarutulf_Lertimud]

That must have been one short horoscope reading!

[@desperadox7565]

Astrology at school? Seriously?

[@kevinbrooks9074]

In the quiet of the night aboard the USS Enterprise, Commander Riker and Captain Picard found themselves in the captain's ready room, enjoying a rare moment of relaxation. The stars outside the window formed a mesmerizing backdrop, a reminder of the vastness of space they explored together. "Jean-Luc, do you ever tire of this endless journey?" Riker asked, his voice soft, almost reflective. Picard looked up from his book, a slight smile playing on his lips. "There are moments, Will, when the solitude of command can weigh heavily. But then, I think of the crew, of the friendships we've forged, and it all seems worthwhile." Riker nodded, understanding the sentiment all too well. "We've been through so much together. It's those bonds that keep us going, I think." The captain set his book aside and leaned back in his chair. "Indeed. It's not just the exploration of the unknown that drives us, but the connections we make along the way." There was a comfortable silence between them, one that spoke of years of mutual respect and camaraderie. Riker walked over to the replicator and ordered two glasses of Saurian brandy, handing one to Picard. "To friendship," Riker toasted, raising his glass. "To friendship," Picard echoed, clinking his glass against Riker's.

[@bizichyld]

Simon Whistler could read the ingredients on the back of my shampoo bottle and I’d still be captivated.

[@FeelnLikeIDoEveryDay]

With the paper analogy, one aspect of it that always escaped as I never heard it explicitly said, was as you increase thickness with folds you decreases surface area. The numbers equal out but you become unable to collapse the area of space in on itself.

[@lfcbpro]

True, but if you had a large enough (theoretically) piece of paper, it would end up virtually in a point, but it could go the distance?? That is kinda how I saw it.

[@LisaBeta-42]

would be nice to reverse the process - starting with the size of a postcard (at the 42-times stacked tower to the moon: 40 times = a normal sheet of printing paper) - 37 times is 1 meter squared and then you may use the chessboard analogy with the grains of rice (doubeling up on every square) - a stack of 32 - takes more than a squared kilometer - ending in the whole surface of the moon AND that of Africa to get the amount of ground required for your folding up game

[@hctim96]

I'm so glad I learned about parallelograms in high school math instead of learning how to do my taxes.. It comes in so handy during parallelogram season...

[@richardgratton7557]

Tax returns are basically adding and subtracting numbers. So not high school math but primary school math.😉

[@oxydoreduction2483]

If you can't do your taxes it's not the because of the education system but just because you're stupid

[@dkwannabe]

@@richardgratton7557 You might recall that the math part of math class wasn't as hard as figuring out how to apply it. (US) taxes are way harder than basic math.

[@the80hdgaming]

I've been cursed/blessed with a "math brain"

[@timothymachen687]

Fantastic analysis, and journalism! Keep up the excellent work!

[@randallmacdonald4851]

This is the first time in my life that I got to laugh at a math feature: "... since all numbers can be squared, just remove all ..." of them. Something funny usually involves a surprise. Simon pointed out that math reasoning and it hit me hard as very funny. That was so awesome!

[@maurer3d]

When I was in math class in High school we did the paper folding problem, just in a different way. The teacher asked "would you rather be paid $1000 a day for 30 days, or $0.01 a day doubled everyday. If you choose $1000 a day you ended up with $30,000, but if you choose the penny doubled daily you ended up with almost $11 million dollars.

[@real_surreal_sir]

How many people actually chose the 1000? That doesn't seem like anywhere near enough to consider taking even if you don't have much of a math brain

[@maurer3d]

@@real_surreal_sir We were asked to pick one, then explain why we choose before the teacher showed how to do the math. Only like 5 of us knew how to do the math before the teacher showed the class, so only the 5 of us picked the penny option.

[@100percentSNAFU]

I have used this one many times and almost everyone says $1000. You could actually bump it up to $100,000 and it would still be less than the penny doubled 30 times.

[@jaysant6958]

The way I’ve heard it is to either double a penny everyday for 30 days or one million dollars in one day. With this one, the million dollar option sounds more tempting than when using the one thousand dollars for 30 days one.

[@mydogskips2]

@@real_surreal_sir You're only saying that because you know the answer. For someone who doesn't know the "power" of exponential growth, the idea of a bunch of pennies doesn't seem like much. I mean, to be fair, you need to wait until day 18 before you get even $1000(on a single day). It's just that the growth really takes off from there and you start getting multiple thousands of dollars a day. It's not even until day 28 that you get your first million-dollar day. I used a calculator and think I got my numbers right.

[@budderzmonahan6215]

Two words: British Vsauce.

[@sksajjad7847]

Thats quite an overstatement

[@petergroves3153]

@@sksajjad7847 I agree: Vsauce knows what he's talking about.

[@astralb.2647]

This video was the perfect way to shut off my brain by being so confusing after having a real shitty day that left me devastated. Now I'm just empty and confused. 10/10

[@varenoftatooine2393]

14:25 Instructions unclear: went bankrupt trying to buy infinite balls.

[@jonathanschrader7881]

I am pretty amazed at.999 is equal to 1... I am definitely going to hold on to that one

[@awAtercoLorstaIn.]

I usually love things like this, and I accept that it’s algebraically possible to prove. I’m even okay with the logic. But an infinite number is essentially undefined; it’s impossible to assign it a finite value without mutating it somehow. We can use a finite number to represent it, as we would in programming, but again, we’re only doing that so our program doesn’t run forever. Infinite $1 bills = infinite $20 bills? Of course! An undefined amount of a defined value is equal to an undefined amount of any other value. The denomination is just some agreed-upon unit of measure and has nothing to do with the value.

[@lfcbpro]

@@awAtercoLorstaIn. Agreed, these are all based on actually putting a quantity, at some point on infinity, which is not possible.

[@gordonbrinkmann]

Actually, this was not very amazing to me since I learned that in school and it seemed absolutely logical to me. We learned that by multiplying and subtracting (not going into detail here but like Simon shows first with the 9 = 9x result) how to convert any given recurring number into a fractional number with finite numerator and denominator.

[@lfcbpro]

@geraldsmith6225 no it doesn't, lol 1.00000000 is 1 .999999999 is .999999999 :)))

[@Raugturi]

@@lfcbpro If the 9's are repeating (meaning they go on forever) those are the same number.

[@DaveyJonesLocka]

My world has just been shattered: never in my wildest dream that I think 0.1 was between one and two!

[@charles-y2z6c]

Remember when I took a statistics class in college, first thing we were asked were our birthday and if we hear someone else to let the class know. It happened on the third person. The instructor explained it to us and let us know it happens in about half his classes

[@mclovin6829]

I'm going to teach a math class from the Principia Mathematica. Imagine reading, memorizing, and writing reports on 400 rambling pages, just to see "1+1=" as your semester final

[@roguebanana87]

My favourite maths fact is the rope around the Earth equation if you havent seen it

[@victordelviller7502]

I can count to five without using my fingers 😎 Beat that handsome science guy

[@jochenstacker7448]

I count my fingers three times and get three different results. 😂

[@Fizz-Pop]

You can use your fingers?.. Why I have I been collecting dead rats then? I thought it was coz they sorta rolled up nicely when you were done countin. You tellin me I coulda cooked em?!

[@_Super_Hans_]

Simon is neither handsome nor a scientist

[@jimmydepersis3130]

I can count to 21 if I'm naked!

[@bloodbeats]

I can ride a bike with no handlebars.

[@rochinhaufc]

What happened to nordVPN?

[@reidthompson6272]

Outbid

[@RevJR]

Ah boy, I just realized I haven't watched fact boy in like a few months because youtube stopped recommending him at some point. Now fact boy is back. Grace me with facts, O wise fact boy.

[@Mitjitsu]

My favourite fact is that if you drop a coin it never mathematically hits the ground as you can keep adding decimal points as to the time.

[@claywest9528]

Regarding an infinite number of $1 bills versus an infinite number $20 bills just give me a pre paid debit card with either one.

[@kevinbrooks9074]

In the quiet of the night aboard the USS Enterprise, Commander Riker and Captain Picard found themselves in the captain's ready room, enjoying a rare moment of relaxation. The stars outside the window formed a mesmerizing backdrop, a reminder of the vastness of space they explored together. "Jean-Luc, do you ever tire of this endless journey?" Riker asked, his voice soft, almost reflective. Picard looked up from his book, a slight smile playing on his lips. "There are moments, Will, when the solitude of command can weigh heavily. But then, I think of the crew, of the friendships we've forged, and it all seems worthwhile." Riker nodded, understanding the sentiment all too well. "We've been through so much together. It's those bonds that keep us going, I think." The captain set his book aside and leaned back in his chair. "Indeed. It's not just the exploration of the unknown that drives us, but the connections we make along the way." There was a comfortable silence between them, one that spoke of years of mutual respect and camaraderie. Riker walked over to the replicator and ordered two glasses of Saurian brandy, handing one to Picard. "To friendship," Riker toasted, raising his glass. "To friendship," Picard echoed, clinking his glass against Riker's.

[@freddiemercury2075]

I love numbers and that's the reason I don't have much friends, folks were out drinking and partying on Friday nights while I was at home solving math problems, coming up with formulas and discovering the relationship between numbers.

[@randomperson5579]

well if you had an infinite number of $1 or $20 bills both would cause infinite inflation, making your currency worthless, another fun math fact: any number to the power of 5 (x^5) will share the same ones/unit digit as the original number (eg. 17^5 the ones digit is a 7, 103^5, the ones digit is a 3)

[@Ed_Stuckey]

There are three kinds of people in the world. Those who understand math and those who don't.

[@WombatMan64]

There are 10 types of people in this world, those who understand binary and those who don't.

[@byhammerandhand]

There are 10 kinds of people who understand binary, those that do and those that don't

[@CapAnson12345]

For that ping pong balls in the box problem it's only empty if you consider all possible numbers at once. If you do it one at a time it never empties as any ball removed means one was put in. So there's always at least one ball in the box.

[@runexheart]

No, because that assumes that there is an end to infinity. There isn't, so there are always more balls being taken out of the box.

[@lfcbpro]

@@runexheart At the same time there are always more balls being put into the box. :)

[@chrisdeanndavison3626]

14:35 Folding Paper to the Moon reminds me of a something my grandpa would propose to people. He'd say, "I need you to work for 30 days. I'll pay you a penny on the first day and double it each day after. When can you start?" Around the second week, you'd finally make a normal days pay, but after that it really adds up. If you do the math, you end up with several million dollars at the end of 30 days.

[@michaelhughes5414]

I'm loving the new pronunciation of arithmetic - arithmatic.

[@vettle1]

Want to see exponential growth, get married.

[@junction13pirate]

More of these videos please, i love the way my heads figuring it all out 🖖🏻🖖🏻🖖🏻🖖🏻

[@extra-dry]

When I was in third grade, we had this very challenge. The teacher asked if we thought any 2 of us, in a class of 31, had the same birthday. Not only were there two, but 3 of us, all sitting next to eachother, were born on the same day. Not only that, my mother and my classmates mother, were in a joint room at the hospital. The third one of us, was born 3 hours eariler, and his mom had been moved to another room. More than 65 years later, we're still friends.

[@OlafReuh]

What happened to me is that I had to choose a singer for an opera and two ladies went to audition. So in the room we were four persons : these two ladies, the pianist and me (I'm a singer too). And it turned out that not only the two ladies were born on the exact same day and year (although not being related) but they also had the same birthday as me. So it was a 3 out of 4 with the same birthday and the same profession ! What are the odds...

[@dkwannabe]

Being born in the same hostpital has way different math than the shared birthday. There is a huge chance of sharing hospitals (or schools, for that matter) because...geography. It's a lot more likely in school that you have a classmate born at the same hospital as you than one 10,000 miles away since most kids in your class will be from the same neighborhood - it's probably more than a 99% chance (I'm not doing the math).

[@extra-dry]

@@dkwannabe the point was, in a class of 31 students, 3 with same day birthday, randomly sitting side by side, strangers to each other, born within hours of each other, same hospital, sitting in birth order. There were no other pairs of birthdays in class

[@dkwannabe]

@@extra-dry I understood the point just fine, and all of it is pretty cool and all, except the same hospital part. In a community setting it would be extremely likely that 20 or more of your 31 were born in the same hospital.

[@gracefulkimberella]

I thought I was going to get bored. I actually enjoyed it!! Thanks!

[@Thailand_Dan]

VSauce2 does a deep dive vid on the birthday problem. Great video as always, Simon.

[@gavinburr6213]

The birthday paradox is also effected by social aspects. Like November birthdays being common due to February (valentines) conceptions. Or spring births from winter conceptions.

[@mastercheifslayer300]

I remember in middle school, not only did I share a birthday with one of my classmates, but we also had identical twins in the classrooms

[@TheKrispyfort]

Countable infinities. Sounds like when your kid becomes an adult. Reflecting back on your child's existence and you realise the countless eternities that fill into an instant

[@boomjykeo2]

Simon: “Euclid…” Me, a Sleep Token fan: *uncontrollable sobbing*

[@dbasher9974]

It might sound stupid but is the $1 and $20 infinity thing the same sort of idea as asking “what’s heavier, a tonne of feathers or a tonne of bricks?”. You might have more feathers and you might imagine as bricks being heavier but in the defined region of numbers, they’re the same?

[@mattyt1961]

a pedant (me :)) would argue that 1 tonne of feathers is still heavier since you would need a container to hold them on the scale. So you would have 1 tonne of feathers + a container. 1 tonne of bricks can be stacked so they don't need a container or any strapping so it is only 1 tonne.

[@lfcbpro]

@@mattyt1961Who says they have to be in a container? A large enough scale (bear in my we are talking hypothetically) could measure both. I raise your pedantry :))))

[@mattyt1961]

@@lfcbpro 🖖I salute you fellow pedant :) well played

[@dbasher9974]

@@mattyt1961 I was going to say, another pedant (me😉) would argue that would then be the tonne (X) + the weight of a container to contain them (Y), where as I was just talking about the weight of X. Valuable observation though fellow pedant 🫡

[@ProxyFoxOne]

Algebra exam questions for Euclidean and Modular maths, a nightmare to remember in addition to formulas for cryptographic functions.

[@paulquaife7974]

Douglas Adams knew what he was talking about then

[@HarryWHill-GA]

Two plus two equals five, for large values of two and small values of five.

[@holyheretic3185]

"math is easy! If you struggle in math it's because your teachers sucked." - college professor who made math easy.

[@danidavis7912]

When I was 11, we lived next door to a family whose oldest daughter was my exact age. We were even born during the same hour although I was born a state away. Her name was Caroline. My first real crush....grin....

[@baddman69]

I'd like to get someone to run the birthday problem practically. Get random groups of people into rooms and record the results. Because pure math and reality don't always jive with each other.

[@QBCPerdition]

That was what was implied by the classroom bit. If a class's size is roughly 24 kids, and we assume birthday distributions are roughly random, then in about 50% of classes there will be two kids with the same birthday. And in my limited experience, that feels about right. In fact my daughter and one of her classmates apparently have the same birthday.

[@baddman69]

@@QBCPerdition That's anecdotal evidence. You can predict all you want but until you run the experiment you won't know for sure.

[@QBCPerdition]

@@baddman69 all I meant was the experiment has been run via class sizes. All you would need is a scientist to get the birthday data and class sizes to run the actual analysis.

[@CemKalyoncu]

@@QBCPerdition It is far easier to do than that. Since we already assumed all days are equally likely to be your birthday, you could write a computer program to randomly pick 23 numbers between 1 and 365 inclusive. Then check if there is any overlap. Repeat it for a million times. In reality some dates are more likely increasing the chance of overlap slightly.

[@WombatMan64]

I've seen this done both by Matt Parker, and Stephen Fry (on QI). In QI they got a repeat after 7 people if I remember right, and Matt got a repeat after about 30.

[@kirbynix1271]

I was once in a fantasy football league of 10 people that had 2 separate shared birthdays. It included 2 unrelated people literally born on the same day

[@nbarnes6225]

Me, my dad, and my nephew all share the same birthday. One of my sisters and a different nephew also share a birthday. So....that number is 100% more often than not. 😜

[@jeffcolorado]

A birthday paradox story: I once attended a 3 day seminar, and there were 28 of us in the room. I mentioned the odds were good at least two of us shared a birth date. None of us did. When we got to class the next day, one attendee told us he'd gone to a bar the previous night and got in a discussion about the birthday paradox. He said it was him and two other people at the bar discussing this. As they talked, it turned out the other two people sitting at the bar with him did share a birthday! The group was amazed and we all had a good laugh over it.

[@johnpaterson6112]

In reality, the likelihood of twins attending the same event increases the probability of a birthday match.

[@brianarbenz1329]

Of course some twins can have different birthdays, due to their births circling midnight. Or just being days apart; that actually does happen.

[@petergroves3153]

Did nobody notice that he made a dog's breakfast of Euclid's 5th axiom by omitting the first 'not'? I listened to it, and thought 'that makes no sense at all!'

[@Weaver_Games]

I remember in my stats class of about 50 people the prof told us about the birthday problem and made us all say our birthday until someone else matched but no one had the same one in the whole class lol. It did not prove his point.

[@RayAkuma]

42, the answer to everything.

[@danielversion1.035]

Never forget that human definition is not a guaranteed reflection of reality.

[@antonrichardson7843]

Hilariously enough, when i was in college, not only did two of us share a birthday, but we shared it with our professor too.

[@trumpetmom8924]

Last semester I had a student in one of my classes whose birthday is the same as mine (not the year, obviously, I teach middle school music). There were 12 students, plus me, so only 13 people and we had a match. I also have a couple band students who share birthdays.

[@twostate7822]

Same birthday problem. Take 2 people. Look at one of the people. The odds of not having a matching birthday is 364/365 (not counting leap years). For 3 people, the calculation is (364/365) x (363/365). For 4 people, (364/365) x (363/365) x (362/365), etc. When the chance of not having a matching birthday reaches .5, then the chance of having a matching birthday exceeds 50%.

[@TheNadzed]

In 1979 as a wide eyed freshman, in my first college Algebra class, after the 1st test, a angry graduate assistant, berated the class, and proclaimed we couldn’t prove 1+1 = 2 And proceeded to show us. Most dropped the class, he told me if I stay and attend every class I’ll get a “C” My 1st and thankfully not last experience with grade curve

[@paulbyerlee2529]

I'm not greedy. Give me a chess board and a grain of rice and double the grains of rice for each square.

[@kamoboko86]

12:45 20 kilos of hammers is the same weight as 20 kilos of feathers. It’s the same concept. That’s why $1 bills are the same as $20 bills.

[@CC-gg4oj]

I love when you cover Math!

[@adelaflores2027]

I actually share my birthday with 2 coworkers. So I am literally living the Birthday paradox.

[@reyhaz]

"when will I ever use such complex math in my life.. probably never!" ... (while playing video games): "never has came"

[@roland4553]

So what are the chances that I have never had the same birthday as anyone else in a every class I have ever had

[@Erowid801]

What are the chances that 365 random people don't share a birthday?

[@TheKrispyfort]

One I don't know what it's 1 over (1/?). But it's still 1

[@LisaBeta-42]

@@TheKrispyfort no way, if you invite twins

[@johannesvanderhorst9778]

The chances are 365!/(365^365). This is close to e^(-365), what is smaller than 10^-150.

[@lesgrossman6332]

In my college class of like 30 ppl, 3 people share a birthday, one of em being the professor😂

[@13thravenpurple94]

Excellent video 👍 Thank you 💜

[@AvailableUniverse]

I know this is 4 months old at this point. But I kid you not, in college was assigned into a group of 4 people with one person never showing up. We realized our emails ended in the same number, and found out we shared the same birthday. It was at that moment probability solidified for me lol.

[@jandecoleman1]

But numbers can lie. I'll explain: if 3 people get a hotel room, that is $25 a night. However, because $25 can not be divided evenly, each person pays $10 each, therefore paying $30. Now, because the room was overpaid, the manager tells the bellhop to take the extra $5 to the room. When the bellhop gets to the room and the guests can't divide the $5 evenly, they each take $1 back and tip the bellhop $2. Therefore, the three guests paid $9 each. Well, $9 * 3 = $27, plus the $2 tip equals $29, so where is the 30th dollar?

[@ThatWriterKevin]

First of all, they're incorrectly charged $30. They don't just voluntarily give ever money. But regardless, math isn't lying, YOU'RE lying. You are correct, they all paid $9 each: $25 to the hotel and $2 to the bellhop which equals $27. The other $3 are the three dollars they were given back by the bellhop.

[@jandecoleman1]

@ThatWriterKevin You are totally missing my point. Ever wonder how some accountants get away with stealing millions of dollars for years or how some rich people hide money from the government? They use this math to hide the money, use the same story but add a couple of zeros behind those numbers. The "books" will look correct on the bottom line with a cursory look and it is not until you dig into the numbers to find the truth. My point was to show that numbers can very easily lie to you, I am just demonstrating it using very simple math, to make it easy for the average person to understand.

[@djdrack4681]

Simon: [in title]. "Math" Simian: [Simon's simpler Bro]. "Maths" Nice try, I can tell these twins apart . ;)

[@VosperCDN]

Not sure this was the best video to watch first thing in the morning after waking up, but here I am - awake and wondering about maths issues I never even considered before 🤨

[@jakebeard609]

Idk why i watch videos like this he does. My head always hurts after lol

[@CaseyBDook]

All of this makes sense to me. Is there something wrong with me?

[@templarw20]

Chapter 3 just had me thinking "base 10 doesn't like thirds," which is nothing new...

[@bradleysteinert8957]

Thank you for this. Love your videos!

[@jjasper7512]

That's a great maths lesson, never thought I'd say this but more maths please!

[@GimpyChinaman]

With regard to your prrof that .9 repeating equals 1 and the difference between infinite $1 and infinite $100 bills, by coincidence Numberphile posted the larest in their series of -1/12 videos debating that equavalent and discussing the problems with infinity.

[@Queendaisy76]

Leap Day baby here. Don’t discard Leap Year. 😭. I love watching people do leap year math. you should do a video about it!

[@pjeaton58]

This year (2024) is a leap year, so it should be possible to leap to the Moon on just 43 sheets of paper !

[@WombatMan64]

I can't be bothered looking for it, but I remember doing the calculations for the birthday paradox including Feb 29 a number of years back. It's still 23 people to pass 50% chance of a shared birthday; however it's very unlikely for that shared birthday to actually be the 29th of Feb.

[@Queendaisy76]

@@WombatMan64 and yet when i was in high school, i usually sat next to a guy who was also a leap day baby, both born at a hospital 140 miles away hours apart and ended up in a small school in the desert. only other leap day baby i’ve met

[@WombatMan64]

@@Queendaisy76 Unlikely but clearly not impossible :) I assume you both became pirates and later made friends with the very model of a modern major general?

[@ItsWillLee]

My grandmother had 14 children 8 girls, 6 boys. 3 girls were born on the same day. I have 75 cousins as a result, lol, yet none of us have the same birthday. 🤷‍♂️

[@gowdsake7103]

The problem here is infinity is NOT a number

[@Steven-v6l]

of course infinity is a number ℵ0 (aleph-zero) is the size of the set of integers {1,2,3,4,5, ...} . ℵ0 is the 'smallest' infinity ℵ0 is sometimes known as ω (omega) ℵ1 is the number of subsets of the set of integers, or 2 to the power ℵ0, (2^ℵ0) you can keep going ℵ2=2^ℵ1, ℵ3=2^ℵ2, ℵ4=2^ℵ3 ... and so on after a while you get to ℵω (aleph-omega) which is big. after that things start to get weird ...

[@tamarackgaming]

The folding paper one. Exponential growth concept was explained to me when I was a kid using pennies. Get a job for one month (30 days). Convince your employer to pay you $0.01 on Day 1, $0.02 on Day 2, $0.04 on Day 3....do that up to day 30. How much money do you receive on Day 30? Same as the paper folding just using a different medium.

[@lfcbpro]

There is one about rice and a chessboard, long story short, guy tells King, if I beat you, you give me a grain of rice on the first square of the board, and two on the second, four on the third and so on...... come the last square on the board, (64th square) it was more rice than in the whole kingdom, :P

[@albondigas9764]

Never had a class where two people shared the same birthday. Had 30 people on average in my class. Wonder what the odds are.

[@AlyciaWilson]

100% on board with the birthday paradox… in my kindergarten class of maybe 20 kids there were 3 of us that had the same birthday.

[@Snoodlehootberry]

Easier example about infinities is: there’s an infinity of even numbers, there’s also an infinity of odd numbers but when you add them together, do you get a larger infinity of all numbers or simply infinity of all numbers?

[@norwoodwildlife9849]

Ask a person if they would rather have a million dollars or double a penny every day for 30 days. The latter comes out to over 5 million dollars

[@JohnSmith-nx7zj]

The latter comes to over $10m. That being said, whilst from a mathematical standpoint you should take the doubling penny, if the million dollars was on the table in cash right now I’d still take the million. I’d probably just expect the person to stop honouring the doubling penny thing after a week or two.