Matt Parker and Bec Hill present: A Problem Squared. A podcast dedicated to solving problems of all kinds, such as, "What should I listen to right now?". A Podcast Squared. First one's free. You're welcome.
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097 = Number of Maps & Numbered Pads
097 = Number of Maps & Numbered Pads 🗺 Are there enough OS maps to cover Great Britain? 0️⃣ Why does zero come before nine on a mobile phone? 📰 And, of course, some AOB! If you want to see Bec’s friend Amy’s summary of accessibility in Thorpe Park and theme parks more generally, head on over to her instagram page: https://www.instagram.com/longcovidrockstar/ Here is a picture of The Big Tractor: https://amp.theguardian.com/australia-news/2024/oct/08/giant-red-tractor-carnamah-wa-australias-big-things You can watch a brilliant Phone Phreaking Documentary here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FufYSx2_6Bg&ab_channel=RCW39RJ Here’s that Numberphile vid about Phone Buttons: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kCSzjExvbTQ&ab_channel=Numberphile And the 17 Designs That Bell Almost Used for the Layout of Telephone Buttons: https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2013/08/the-17-designs-that-bell-almost-used-for-the-layout-of-telephone-buttons/279237/ Please send your problems and solutions into the website: www.aproblemsquared.com. If you’re on Patreon and have a creative Wizard offer to give Bec and Matt, please comment on the ‘Sup ‘Zards’ pinned post! And if you want (we’re not forcing anyone) to leave us a review, show the podcast to a friend or give us a rating! Please do that. It really helps. Finally, if you want even more from A Problem Squared you can connect with us and other listeners on Twitter, Instagram, and on Discord.
096 = Movie Pairs and Moving Flares
🎞 Why would competing studios release movies in the same year that have the same concept or plot? 🔭 Why are we seeing the Aurora Borealis in the UK? 📈 Business of an any other nature. If you want to have a listen to Bec on Tom Scott’s podcast ‘Lateral’ you can do that here, at some point soon: https://open.spotify.com/show/1TthQOE4Fx6gBPW8l48cfN Their book can also be brought here! It’s really good: https://lateralcast.com/book/ To see a history of solar flare data going back to 1700, follow this link here: https://www.sidc.be/SILSO/ssngraphics Please send your problems and solutions into the website: www.aproblemsquared.com. If you’re on Patreon and have a creative Wizard offer to give Bec and Matt, please comment on the ‘Sup ‘Zards’ pinned post! And if you want (we’re not forcing anyone) to leave us a review, show the podcast to a friend or give us a rating! Please do that. It really helps. Finally, if you want even more from A Problem Squared you can connect with us and other listeners on Twitter, Instagram, and on Discord.
095 = Friday Fears and Disco Spheres
🍀 Does the 13th really fall more frequently on Friday? 💿 How do you make a giant disco ball wearable? 🍩 And we have some any other doughness. If you want to find out more about the cardboard related event (called Number City!) Matt attended on Orkney Island, have a look at this link: https://oisf.org/fest-event/number-city/. Do send your problems and solutions to the website: www.aproblemsquared.com. If you’re on Patreon and have a creative Wizard offer to give Bec and Matt, please comment on the ‘Sup ‘Zards’ pinned post! And if you like, leave us a review, pass the podcast onto a friend or give us a rating! Every little helps. If you want even more from A Problem Squared, you can find us onTwitter,Instagram, and on Discord.
094 = The First Podcasts and Votes Precast
💿 What did the first ever podcast sound like? 🗳 How do you REALLY lose an election in the US? 📰 Business will be closed, and opened. Thank you to Emily for the Maths mittens! To see pictures of those, head over to APS socials. You can see the incredible Agree to Disagree podcast pages from 1999 here: https://web.archive.org/web/19990914040650/http://www.thealph.com/agree/ https://web.archive.org/web/19991004035401/http://thealph.com/agree/about.shtml There is also a file, but we don’t think it contains any data. Can someone help find an original review? https://web.archive.org/web/19991103231714/http://thealph.com/agree/episodes/6x02.shtml Do send your problems and solutions to the website: www.aproblemsquared.com. If you’re on Patreon and have a creative Wizard offer to give Bec and Matt, please comment on the ‘Sup ‘Zards’ pinned post! And if you like, leave us a review, pass the podcast onto a friend or give us a rating! Every little helps. If you want even more from A Problem Squared, you can find us on Twitter, Instagram, and on Discord
093 = Game Solutions and Neil Distributions
⭕ Circle Can Tic-Tac-Toe ever be fun? 🤏What is the smallest Neil called? 🗞There’s some Any Other Business! ⚔️Battleships continues. If you want to read the works referenced by Matt in his tic-tac-toe / naughts and crosses problem, take a look below: Solo Noughts and Crosses, James Grime: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/10724117.2023.2168434 Tic-tac-tome, Willy Yoners: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Tic-Tac-Autonomous-Playing-Book/dp/1594746877 A Knowledge-based Approach of Connect-Four The Game is Solved: White Wins, Victor Alis: https://disi.unitn.it/~montreso/asd/docs/connect4.pdf Is ultimate tic-tac-toe solved? https://www.joachim-breitner.de/blog/604-Ultimate_Tic_Tac_Toe_is_always_won_by_X Please send your problems and solutions to the website: www.aproblemsquared.com. If you’re on Patreon and have a creative Wizard offer to give Bec and Matt, please comment on the ‘Sup ‘Zards’ pinned post! And if you like, leave us a review, pass the podcast onto a friend or give us a rating! Every little helps. If you want even more from A Problem Squared, you can find us on Twitter, Instagram, and on Discord
092 = Broken Hands and Alexander's Bands
🌈 How many colours are really in a rainbow? 🕰 How often is a broken clock is right? 💼 The Any Other Business briefcase is open. Briefly. 🏴 And we have a NEW POST CREDITS easter egg. To hear more about the brilliant and terrible Emily In Paris premier, listen to this episode: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/point-break-pt-1-season-04-episode-01/id1720149980?i=1000666164553 If you want to see where the Mattparker asteroid / minor planet is in the universe, you can locate it on this NASA database: https://ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/tools/sbdb_lookup.html#/?sstr=314159&view=VOP A full circle rainbow was captured by aerial photographer Colin Leonhardt while flying through a rain shower just above Cottesloe Beach in Western Australia: https://s.abcnews.com/images/International/cn_round_rainbow_australia_jc_141010_16x9_992.jpg?w=1600 And if you want to be even more wowed, you can see a reflective rainbow (or six!) in Norway: https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/0709/sixrainbows_nordvik_big.jpg Finally, send your problems and solutions to our website: www.aproblemsquared.com. If you’re on Patreon and have a creative Wizard offer to give Bec and Matt, please comment on the ‘Sup ‘Zards’ pinned post! And if you like, leave us a review, pass the podcast onto a friend or give us a rating! Every little helps. If you want even more from A Problem Squared, you can find us onTwitter,Instagram, and on Discord
091 = Optimal Darts and Smelling Sharks
🎯 What is the optimal layout for a dart board? 🦈 How soon after a cut does a shark smell your blood? 📜 And there’s some AYE-YOOO-BEEEE. To see the Percy Arrangement mentioned by Matt follow this link: https://www.globaldarts.de/globalDartsEN/sport/Percysboard.html And for the “Optimal Dartboard Design” reveal, see here! https://journals.indexcopernicus.com/api/file/viewByFileId/1980058If you want to learn more about shark senses, check out Sensory Biologist Dr. Lauren Eve Simonitis‘s Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/oceanexplauren/?hl=en And if you like, leave us a review, pass the podcast onto a friend or give us a rating! Every little helps. Finally, if you want even more from A Problem Squared, you can find us on Twitter, Instagram, and on Discord
090 = Washing Machine Lies and Lincoln Penny Highs
🧺 Why is the cycle time on my washing machines always wrong? 🪙 How long will it take to sell 400 Lincoln memorial pennies for $20,000? 🔔 We have DINGS! 🧳 And the business briefcase is open! Disclaimer: You may hear a slight change in tone on Matt's audio at points throughout, that's back up audio which sounds different. If you want to find out more about the IMO, or International Mathematics Olympics, you can do that here: https://www.imo-official.org/ And if you’re in London and you want to experience the janky eclipse, why not visit Novelty Automation! You can find details about this gem of a place here: https://www.novelty-automation.com/10_current-machines.htm" Finally, send your problems and solutions to our website: www.aproblemsquared.com. If you’re on Patreon and have a creative Wizard offer to give Bec and Matt, please comment on the ‘Sup ‘Zards’ pinned post! And if you like, leave us a review, pass the podcast onto a friend or give us a rating! Every little helps. Finally, if you want even more from A Problem Squared, you can find us on Twitter, Instagram, and on Discord
089 = Venomous Snakes and Doggy Legs
On this episode... 🐍If you pooled up all the snake venom in the world would it be enough to kill all the non-immune mammals? 👢Do dogs have 2 arms? Or do we have 4 legs? 📜And we open the business briefcase. If you want to know more about lizard sampling, do that here: ‘Hierarchical distance sampling to estimate population sizes of common lizards across a desert ecoregion’: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/ece3.4780 There’s a great video by Technology Connections to turn signals and specifically syncing them up, you can find that here: https://youtu.be/2z5A-COlDPk?si=SWSE_FX3fuyLH1X0 You can find the rude praying hands here: https://www.reddit.com/r/teams/comments/xvpefh/can_we_please_talk_about_the_praying_emoji_on/ https://support.microsoft.com/en-gb/office/hand-gestures-in-microsoft-teams-free-ff2354cd-17fa-44fc-80c9-3d88c577a1ad As always, send your problems and solutions to our website: www.aproblemsquared.com. And, if you want more from A Problem Squared, you can also find us on Twitter, Instagram, Discord and on Patreon.
088 = Tired Tires and Curvy Cubes
🚘 What happens when tires get tired? 🧊 What is the equation for the curve on a spinning Ruibik’s cube? 📜 And there’s some pin related AOB! Find out more about the counting crows here: https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adl0984 You can hear Bec on Ali Plumb’s podcast ‘Screen Time’ here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p02r4zfx/episodes/downloads If you want to learn more about the EMF Festival, follow this link: https://www.emfcamp.org/ To read ‘Where the tire meets the road: Emerging environmental impacts of tire wear particles and their chemical cocktails’, go here: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2024.171153 For more information on the cones, ruled surfaces, hyperbolic paraboloids and more, have a look at the links below! https://mathworld.wolfram.com/Hyperboloid.html https://mathworld.wolfram.com/RuledSurface.html https://mathworld.wolfram.com/HyperbolicParaboloid.html You can see some nice hyperboloid structures here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperboloid#Hyperboloid_structures As always, send your problems and solutions to our website: www.aproblemsquared.com. And, if you want more from A Problem Squared, you can also find us on Twitter, Instagram, Discord and on Patreon.
087 = Climbing Cliffses and Cloning Eclipses
🧗 Is it possible to climb every mountain? 🌞 Can you simulate an eclipse if you miss the real thing? 📜 And some loose ends (and change), in AOB! If you’d like to enter the very same gravel race as Matt Parker, you can find out more details here: https://sevengravelrace.com/the-race/ You can listen to ‘Climb Any Mountain’ from the Sound of Music soundtrack here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RKuqySkqhHw&ab_channel=COSMOTOPPER777 And to watch the 1991 The Shamen hit ‘Move Any Mountain’ referenced by Matt (which we later discovered was made by our very own Producer Lauren’s dad!) Follow this link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SpjnzxtZ6Qg&ab_channel=Vesanorabonah You can find details for Matt’s Peak data here: https://peakvisor.com/ https://peakvisor.com/en/news/how_many_mountains_on_earth.html https://peakvisor.com/en/news/unnamed-mountains.html In our Dinglett this week Matt referenced JHelioviewer, where you can access real time solar image data. Do that here: https://www.jhelioviewer.org/ And Bec’s very sensible suggestion for Problem Poser Aaron, to watch the Oculus’ broadcast of the 2024 total eclipse: https://www.oculus.com/experiences/event/1074832456934803/ SFX for Bec’s victory can be found at Fresound.org, ‘VICTORY CRY Reverb 1’ was made by chripei and ‘Music: Orchestral Victory Fanfare’ was made by Sheyvan. As always, send your problems and solutions to our website: www.aproblemsquared.com. And, if you want more from A Problem Squared, you can also find us on Twitter, Instagram, Discord and on Patreon.
086 = Emoji Editions and Birthday Billions
🙏 Is this emoji praying hands or a high five? 🍚 What's the best present for celebrating a billion seconds? 💼 For the first time we have Any Other Business WITH SPECIAL GUESTS! If you want a collectable (and mistake-ridden) copy of ‘Love Triangle’, with a special, limited edition book cover designed by print-artist Paul Catherall. You'll get one free while stocks last. Head over to MathsGear! https://mathsgear.co.uk/products/love-triangle-by-matt-parker-signed Here’s some background on the ‘Folded Hands’ emoji mentioned in Bec’s problem: https://blog.emojipedia.org/emojiology-folded-hands/ This is the pixelated 2001 Softbank version of the Folded Hands emoji: https://emojipedia.org/softbank/2001/folded-hands Here’s the KDDI emoji from 2003, where someone is literally praying: https://emojipedia.org/au-kddi/type-d-1/folded-hands You can find the ‘glowing’ folded hands emoji put out by Apple in 2008 here: https://emojipedia.org/apple/iphone-os-2.2/folded-hands You can find some more variations of the folded hand emoji (including with faces) here: https://b1681952.smushcdn.com/1681952/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/Early-Versions-Folded-Hands-Emojipedia-1.jpg?lossy=0&strip=1&webp=1 There were some fascinating early issues with Unicode (which made emojis universal), where ‘yellow hearts’ sent by iOS users would show up as ‘hairy hearts’ on Android phones. You can read about that here: https://web.archive.org/web/20140502051433/http://www.tuaw.com/2014/04/30/you-may-be-accidentally-sending-friends-a-hairy-heart-emoji/ You can find the Unicode emoji design guidelines here: https://unicode.org/reports/tr51/#Design_Guidelines And if you want to find out whether you’ve already passed your 1 Billionth Second, you can do that here: https://www.wolframalpha.com/input?i=10%5E9+seconds+in+years+and+days If you want to find out whether you’ve already passed your 1 Billionth Second, you can do that here: https://www.wolframalpha.com/input?i=10%5E9+seconds+in+years+and+days As always, send your problems and solutions to our website: www.aproblemsquared.com. And, if you want more from A Problem Squared, you can also find us on Twitter, Instagram, Discord and on Patreon.
085 = Coin Collections and Pin Selections
🪙 How many coins would you need to sort through to collect all commemorative €2 coins in circulation? 📍How do you display enamel pins?! 💼 The Any Other Business briefcase is…mostly open. Here’s the Coupon Collector’s problem video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BstloCx8KDk You can see more on the “Number of banknotes/coins returned from circulation in Euro Area, Euro area (changing composition), Monthly” here: https://data.ecb.europa.eu/data/datasets/BKN/BKN.M.U2.RE10.C.20P0.AS.F.E And, Wiki Sources: “2 euro commemorative coins” on good old Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2_euro_commemorative_coins As always, send your problems and solutions to our website: www.aproblemsquared.com. And, if you want more from A Problem Squared, you can also find us on Twitter, Instagram, Discord and on Patreon.
084 = Indicators and In Da Cake-ers
In this episode... 🎂 Where did birthday cake come from? 🚗 How come my indicator is never in sync with other cars waiting to turn? 💼 And, as always, some business from the business briefcase. Nina, here’s that recipe for Greek Honey Cake: https://www.food.com/recipe/greek-honey-cake-428671 And for more cake from around the world, look no further than this infographic: https://i.imgur.com/lhhotIE.png Here’s the Ben Eater video referenced by Matt: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kRlSFm519Bo And the fascinating paper about time perception and its illusions: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2866156/ Please do send us your problems and solutions to the website: www.aproblemsquared.com If you want more from A Problem Squared, you can also find us on Twitter, Instagram, Discord and on Patreon.
083 = Sunbeams and Dog Dreams
🌒 What’s the best place to see the next solar eclipse? 💤 Do animals dream? 💼 The Any Other Business briefcase is…half open. Send your problems and solutions to our website: www.aproblemsquared.com. For a detailed look at the path of the 2026 eclipse, here’s the website referenced by Matt: https://eclipsophile.com/future-eclipses-2024-2028/ If you want to hear the full interview with David Pena Guzman about animal consciousness referenced by Bec, you can do that here: https://news.uchicago.edu/do-animals-dream-david-m-pena-guzman. Videos of Sky potentially dreaming will be on social media. Tell us what you think? Do dogs dream? And, if you want more from A Problem Squared, you can also find us on Twitter, Instagram, Discord and on Patreon.