11 Weird Facts About Math

Most people when they look at math, look at the everyday formulas. The ones we all tend to use but have you checked out some of the stranger, lesser known math facts?  These are ones you can share with the class and capture their attention.

1.  The Ham Sandwich Theorem from the area of topology.  This theorem states that it is possible to cut the sandwich so the two halves have exactly the same amounts of bread, ham, and cheese. Furthermore, the shape of the three together doesn't matter.

2. The biggest amount of money ever sued for.  One man from New York, sued New York City for two trillion trillion trillion dollars alleging he'd been bitten by a rabid dog while riding a bus and for having his picture taken without his permission. Two trillion, trillion, trillion is $2,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 which is more money than exists in the world.  His lawsuit was thrown out so no one had to pay.

3. Computers are becoming Grand Masters of various games.  For instance, the last person to win a chess game against a computer was in 2005.  Then in 2017, a computer won against the top rated Go player becoming a grand master.

4.  The number forty is the only written number whose letters are in alphabetical order.

5. Back in 1997, a sailor on the USS Yorktown entered a zero in the wrong place in a program and caused the program to divide by zero.  This resulted in the ship's computer shutting down and the ship  was unable to move for two hours.

6.  If you could fold a piece of paper in half 103 times, the paper would be the same thickness as the known universe.

7.  Shakespeare includes the word mathematics in the play, The taming of the Shrew, three times but its the only one of his plays to use the word.

8.  The word "Googol" was created by the 9 year old nephew of American Mathematician Edward Kasner to name the number 1 followed by 100 zeros.  The Google search engine was named after Googol thus making it a household word.

9. The word "Hundred" is actually a corruption of the Norse word hundredth which means 120 not 100 as we use it.

10. The word Calculus means pebbles in Greek and in Latin it means little stone or pebble.

11.The first mathematical formula for modeling epidemics came out in 1927.

I love odd facts about math.  Let me know what you think, I'd love to hear.  Have a great day.