(Archive Question of the Week) We often receive questions saying something like, “My wife has the same birthday as my son-in-law, whose dog has the same name as my wife’s brother, … ,” and asking us to calculate how likely it is that this would happen. Sometimes it is simply impossible to answer (without, say, looking up …
(Archive Question of the Week) Although high school and up probably constitute the majority of our questions, I always enjoy answering younger children. For today’s look at the archives, I thought I’d look at two such questions, both from 1999, and very memorable. The first is almost certainly the youngest “patient” we’ve ever had, and …
(Archive Question of the Week) Having recently discussed a couple different issues that touched on the relationship of math to reality, I was reminded of this old favorite – a question that is not asked often enough, and reveals some of the “dirty little secrets” behind math. Math is not reality; it is often used …
(Archive Question of the Week) Recently I discussed the definition of the median of a data set, pointing out how it needs refinements that are not often discussed. In searching for questions in our archive on that topic, I ran across a discussion of an opposite issue: the breadth of the general term “average”, which …
(Archive question of the week) Sometimes, we get a question that seems familiar, and can look back at past questions to see if we have already answered it, or to get ideas about what it means. This is the story of a problem that seems to float around as folklore, in varied forms. At first …
(Archive question of the week) For Wednesdays, I plan to find a single interesting question from the past and discuss it. One of the things I’ve enjoyed about Ask Dr. Math is getting questions I’d never have thought of on my own, but which lead to some fascinating ideas. Here is an old favorite from …
(Archive question of the week) One day back in November, as I entered the community college where I teach, a man came in behind me with his son, probably about 3 years old. It was the first snowy day of the year, and the father stood on the mat wiping his feet, while the little …