Infinite Hotel Paradox

Infinite Hotel Paradox

Suppose you have a hotel with infinitely many occupied rooms. Now another guest shows up, what would you do? It turns out that you can still accommodate him. In fact, you can actually accommodate a bus of infinitely many guests and even infinite busses of infinitely...

The Sausage Catastrophe

The Sausage Catastrophe

Introduction Contrary to what you might expect, this article is not actually about sausages. It is not even about food at all. Instead, the sausage catastrophe is a mathematical phenomenon that occurs when studying the theory of finite sphere packing.  Finite...

The Seven Bridges of Königsberg

The Seven Bridges of Königsberg

Imagine you are taking a stroll around the 18th century Prussian city of Königsberg (currently Kaliningrad, Russia). The river Pregel runs through Königsberg and there are two large islands in this river. The islands are connected to each other and to the mainland by...

The Myth of Form in Football

The Myth of Form in Football

Have you ever won five games in a row and felt like you could win ten more? Or maybe you lost 5 five and you just kept losing after that? Most people that have played sports will recognize this. Being “in form” seems to have a large impact on whether we will win the...

Moore’s law

Moore’s law

In the fast-paced world of technology, few concepts have proven to be as influential as Moore’s Law. This observation was originally made by Gordon Moore in 1965, co-founder of Intel, which has guided the exponential growth and progress the digital world has made for...

What is the best strategy when playing Monopoly?

What is the best strategy when playing Monopoly?

We have all played Monopoly at least once in our lifetime, the table game that turns best friends into evil competitors and even the most generous person into merciless. Who has never fought to buy a street while playing? How many times have you been accused of...

Gödel’s Incompleteness Theorem

Gödel’s Incompleteness Theorem

In mathematics, we like proofs. For thousands of years, mathematicians believed that we would always be able to say that a statement is true or false, and we do this by proving it. No one ever questioned whether this was always possible until 1931, when Austrian...

The Paradox of Choice

The Paradox of Choice

The Paradox of Choice is a psychological phenomenon that refers to the idea that having too many choices can actually be detrimental to our well-being and decision-making processes. This paradox was first introduced by psychologist Barry Schwartz in his book "The...

The Accuracy Paradox

The Accuracy Paradox

When Charles Darwin was deciding whether or not to propose to his cousin, Emma Wedgwood, he had a rather interesting approach. He drew up a list of pros and cons, as pros he listed things like children, companionship, and the charms of music and female chit-chat; and...