Math mistakes galore: a (semi-)review of Humble Pi

BY CHARLES BEALL ‘22

My girlfriend got me a copy of Matt Parker’s Humble Pi: When Math Goes Wrong in the Real World as a Christmas gift. I am a huge fan of books about math, and a huge fan of Matt Parker. He is also known for his YouTube channel “Stand-up Maths” (Parker is Australian, so he pluralizes the subject), where he presents interesting math with loads of humor and funny stories. You may doubt someone’s ability to make math amusing, but he truly is hilarious — for a good laugh, I strongly recommend watching some of his content!

The book’s title gives a good sense of its contents: Parker has compiled a repository of mistakes people have made in various areas of math over the years, from the earliest instances of civilization in Mesopotamia to the modern day. True to the theme, Parker intentionally includes a few math mistakes of his own in the book, and introduces other funny faux pas, like the page numbers counting down instead of up.

Through its plethora of examples, the book shows not only how math mistakes can have huge consequences, but moreover, just how prevalent math is in the world. For instance, in 2038, many microprocessors (which allow a computer’s or device’s CPU to work) will stop working, due to the way they keep track of time. Computers will likely all have 64-bit processors by then, which avoids this issue, but several other devices, like TVs and thermostats, have 32-bit microprocessors, which will succumb to the “Y2K38” bug if not updated by then.

There is another chapter dedicated to engineering mistakes, which are particularly important to highlight for the Stevens population. Engineering is a difficult profession because, sometimes, seemingly small things, like the frequency of footsteps while walking across a bridge, the roundness of boosters on a space shuttle, or even the way doors open, can be missed. Such misses led to the closing of the Millenium Bridge in London after it swayed too much, the Challenger explosion, and an event at an England theater where hundreds of children died due to a lack of safe exit doors. I haven’t finished the book yet, but the first of the main takeaways I have so far applies to people who are applying math to solve real-world problems, like engineers, financial consultants, and politicians. It is always important to check the math and be sure of its

BY TASHA KHOLSA ‘25 BY MARISA POWERS ‘23

Introduction

In November 2022, classified documents from the Obama-Biden administration were found at the Penn Biden Center. In January 2023, more classified documents were found at the Center. There were more documents found at his home in Wilmington, Delaware later in January. Some of the documents were from his tenure in the Senate from 1973 to 2009.

Campus Conservative,

Marisa Powers

Biden said that he has “no regrets” when asked about why his administration did not disclose the discovered classified documents to the public sooner. However, in my view, he should have some regrets. They waited 68 days after the midterm elections to inform the public, after it was leaked on January 9. It is also important to note that Biden’s other properties were not immediately searched after the first documents were found. The reason for this is that they did not think they would find any other documents, which turned out not to be true, as they found some in the garage of his Wilmington home.

In my view, I do not think his administration should have waited to inform the public, especially since “the administration was already probing former Republican President Donald Trump’s handling of highly sensitive classified documents that he retained at his Florida resort.” His lawyers also should not have been the ones to go through the documents, as they did not have clearance. I think it is also important to ask why the documents from his tenure in the Senate are just being discovered now.

While Biden may have “no regrets,” I do not think he and his administration are handling the situation with as much seriousness as it deserves.

Campus Liberal, them. Moreover, a big concern is the nature of these classified documents and how easily accessible they have been. This poses the question: do there need to be more procedures set in place to avoid classified documents going missing?

FBI director Christopher Wray commented on the situation, “People need to be conscious of the rules regarding classified information and appropriate handling. Those rules are there for a reason.” Evidently, those rules are not being strictly followed.

In a press briefing, White House National Security Council strategic communications coordinator John Kirby mentioned, “We all know what the rules are. We follow the rules. And the procedures exist for a reason. And they’ve been developed over many, many years as the nature of classified material has changed, now down – to now include electronic capability. And so, we’re working at that.” correctness before building something, running functions on Excel, or approving funding for a project. I know that oftentimes we are in a rush to get things done and can miss even easy fixes to a mistake, but making sure everything math-wise is accounted for pushes us toward a better, safer world. Many companies already have employees with extensive math backgrounds to do such things, and I hope that more and more have these positions to prevent catastrophes or errors from occurring.

The other important message is for mathematicians: we need to do the best job possible in advancing mathematics to relevant fields, and teaching that math effectively to our students. When the math is certain, there is much less room for error, because we know how to check if something is wrong. Research allows for uncertain areas of math to become certain, and many mathematicians, pure and applied, are working hard to study such new frontiers.

Moreover, good math teachers try their hardest to give enough background in the subject for going into any line of work. The more such teachers we have, the more math is understood and appreciated by the general workforce and general public, allowing more people to check work before any mistake leads to horrible consequences. As a result, I encourage everyone to read Humble Pi, for math’s and humanity’s sake.

While Biden said he has no regrets, the public has issues with how he responded to the situation. A poll from ABC News reported that 64% of Americans believe that Biden acted inappropriately in how he handled the classified documents.

BY OFF CENTER

Hey everyone, not sure if this is the right place to ask, but my mom just told me to put a notice in the newspaper hoping someone would see it and volunteer. The entire Off the Press staff is going on a five day sabbatical to Tuvalu this week but we can’t take our office cat, Nico, with us so we’re going to need someone to watch him. Don’t worry, this will not impact our rigorous journalism, and there will still be a relevant, thoroughly researched, 600 word journalistic masterpiece next week.

Nico is a six year old tabby cat who’s up to date on vaccines and doesn’t take any medications. He does have a bit of a wobble because his brain is all funky, but he’s still spry and loves to chase things around the office. Just make sure he doesn’t crash into any table legs because sometimes he gets enough momentum that they just break, and then papers will go everywhere. We wouldn’t want you to mistake them for common raspberries because he doesn’t like them and will scratch you if you

Tasha Khosla While the Biden Administration has been making a clear effort to work with the Department of Justice (DOJ) and address the situation, the discovery of these classified documents is definitely concerning. A poll from NBC News found that 67% of Americans are, “equally concerned about the discovery of classified documents found at Biden’s and Trump’s homes, even though the current president and ex-president handled their situations in different ways.” Even though both presidents handled being discovered with classified documents very differently, the reality is that these events do not reflect well on either of

The White House needs to be more transparent about what is being done in order to avoid classified material going missing and not being found until much later. By simply having “no regrets,” Biden has jeopardized the integrity of his administration. The only way to assuage the concerns of the American public is to address the bigger issue head-on and place more measures to prevent this situation from happening so frequently.

Conclusion put those in his bowl. We won’t be able to be in contact with you at all during the week so you’ll have to do it yourself.

Both sides agree that the Biden Administration is not properly handling the situation. The “no regrets” approach seems hollow and does not address the bigger picture. In the end, the Biden Administration should not have waited 10 weeks to tell the public and there needs to be a better procedure for keeping track of these documents.

Another cute quirk with Nico is that his great-grandfather was a dragon from Montenegro, but not a cool giant one. The dragon was pretty much the same size as Nico and did a lot of hissing, but had weird scales, wings, and talons. Anyway, the point is that he might just start speaking in odd mythical languages, but it just means that his great-grandfather’s spirit is passing by and briefly possessing him to make sure he remembers where he came from.

Nico is venomous and will protect our office at all costs. A little love bite could lead to a bad case of Despotellis.

All right, we won’t hide from it anymore. At some point, you’ll have to clean his litter box. This is a little more involved than your average cat. While Nico is descended from a dragon, he’s also more closely descended from a ukulele-playing rabbit (all his other ancestors are conventional cats) so he really likes making mu - sic. The problem is that he only plays the ukulele in his litter box and he’s very bad at it on account of the fact that he is a cat. So you’ll need earplugs and you’ll have to steal his ukulele while he is in between songs. If he starts trying to sing along, even the earplugs won’t save you, so you’ll have to get 3M PELTOR Optime 105 HP Earmuffs to survive. After that, it’s just scooping like normal. We think you’ll find that Nico is very affectionate and shares our passion for good journalism. He often curls up on our office couch and you’ll see a few singe marks where a little bit of fire came out of his nose while he slept. He is his great-grandfather’s great-grandson after all. Nico loves pets and will want to sit on your lap and purr. Let us know if you’re interested because, by the time this article is published, we will be at the airport so hopefully you turned right to the Off the Press article when you pick up the newspaper. We pay $3 per day because our accountant runs a tight ship and there’s never extra money for anything.

Music To My Ears

Music City in 26 hours

BY KAYDEN CANNILLA ‘24

Walking down the busy nightlife street of Broadway, you can expect to be pulled into a variety of bars by rousing performers trying to make it in a busy city. 900 miles away from the Big Apple, Broadway, Nashville, Tennessee is a thriving mu-

Spoiler Alert

sic scene that I was lucky enough to visit for roughly 26 hours, and you can bet I made the most of it. Every restaurant, bar, and coffee shop had a stage for live music with performing hopefuls. Within my first few hours, I saw a guy shredding on a double bass like it was a guitar, swinging around this 20 pound instrument and playing it behind his back. I visited the famous Tootsie’s briefly, which had three floors each with at least one bar and stage. In the 15 minutes I was there, I heard “Sweet Home, Alabama” twice. I missed out on the many party buses that fill the streets (as I was with my parents), but I cannot em- phasize enough how many bachelorette parties there were. Every place we walked into there were at least two groups of eight women each trying to test Nashville’s public drunkenness limit.

I visited two museums — the Country Music Hall of Fame and the Johnny Cash Museum. I am a big museum guy but I did not recognize enough of the names from CMHoF, so the Johnny Cash Museum was enjoyable for a former country music hater.

I saw Elvis’ 1960 gold-plated Cadillac, painted with diamond dust and fish scales and many of Nudie Cohn’s famous designer suits. Taylor Swift made the largest-ever individual donation to the Country Music Hall of Fame to establish the Taylor Swift Education Center. The $4 million donation went towards three classrooms and a music education program.

Behind the futuristic sliding glass doors were three classrooms for the music education program, along with artifacts from Taylor’s career, like her bedazzled guitar or the typewriter from “All Too Well: The Short Film.”

At night was “Opry at the Ryman” with a Dolly Parton themed variety show where a variety of artists played covers and dedicated songs to her for her birthday. The Ryman is an acoustically and historically rich churchturned-concert hall, and sitting in the pews I finally felt at peace being in a room full of people who appreciated Dolly Parton for the saint she is. I’m not sure if a country music hater would be converted by this experience, but I can’t recommend it enough. I signed her birthday card, a stranger kindly took my photo with a cardboard cutout of her, and she recorded a video that they played in the auditorium. I was not able to make it to Dollywood, Dolly Parton’s personal theme park, on this trip; this will require a special pilgrimage.