Boundless Journeys

From J and BMX:
Anscombe's Quartet



All of these plots have the same mean, standard deviation, variance, correlation, and linear regression equation.

And that's why you have to be careful with statistical measures.

Ganked from N:

Two bicyclists start twenty miles apart and head toward each other, each going at a steady rate of 10 mph. At the same time a fly that travels at a steady 15 mph starts from the front wheel of the southbound bicycle and flies to the front wheel of the northbound one, then turns around and flies to the front wheel of the southbound one again, and continues in this manner till he is crushed between the two front wheels.

Question: what total distance did the fly cover?

The slow way to find the answer is to calculate what distance the fly covers on the first, northbound, leg of the trip, then on the second, southbound, leg, then on the third, etc., etc., and, finally, to sum the infinite series so obtained.

The quick way is to observe that the bicycles meet exactly one hour after their start, so that the fly had just an hour for his travels; the answer must therefore be 15 miles.

When the question was put to von Neumann, he solved it in an instant, and thereby disappointed the questioner: "Oh, you must have heard the trick before!" "What trick?" asked von Neumann, "All I did was sum the infinite series."

Big-bang-themed tree. Because it fits the depictions of the big bang quite well, and there can never be enough geekery in the universe.

Quote of the month:
"Human beings must always be on the watch for wonders" -- EB White

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A brilliant ode to skepticism by Tim Minchin:

So apparently, mice can sing to each other:

Development of Social Vocalizations in Mice
The resulting musicals would probably be highly amusing.

 EPIC play of EPICNESS:

www.waitingforgodottheplay.com/home/

You know how people line up for hours for movie premiers and rock concerts? Here they camp out to listen to Kip Thorne's lecture on black holes, gravity waves, and Einstein's theory of relativity.