RANDOM Math FACTS #2

In 1999, two mathematicians, Thomas Yink and Yong Mao, examined the actions involved in tying a necktie and calculated that there were 85 different ways to do so.

However, a new team of mathematicians has trumped their research. Mikael Vejdemo-Johansson of the KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm and a small team of mathematicians found that Fink and Mao had left out some possibilities. 

"We extend the existing enumeration of neck tie knots to include tie knots with a textured front, tied with the narrow end of a tie," Vejdemo-Johansson wrote in the abstract of the team's paper, "More ties than we thought". 

"These tie knots have gained popularity in recent years, based on reconstructions of a costume detail from The Matrix Reloaded, and are explicitly ruled out in the enumeration by Fink and Mao (2000)."  

With this discovery, the team realised that something wasn't quite right, so they had a look at Fink and Mao's research. They realised that Fink and Mao had restricted the number of tucks that occur at the end of knotting the tie to just one. They had also made the assumption that any knotwork would be covered by a flat section of fabric, and restricted the number of windings to just eight.  

Armed with this information, Vejdemo-Johansson's team adjusted the parameters of Fink and Mao's language and calculated that the number of possible knots is much, much higher than the previous calculations: 177,147, to be precise.

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RANDOM FACT #32 - Swifts can fly ALMOST A YEAR WITHOUT LANDING

“They feed in the air, they mate in the air, they get nest material in the air,” says Susanne Åkesson from Lund University in Sweden. “They can land on nest boxes, branches, or houses, but they can’t really land on the ground.” That's because their wings are too long and their legs are too short to take off from a flat surface. Hence the fittingly-named birds' species name, Apus, which translates to "footless". It's actually safer for them to be up in the air than on the ground.

RANDOM Math FACTS #1

Fun and fascinating facts in the world of numbers...

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CANADIAN Facts #1 - The coldest temperature ever recorded in Canada...

Now THAT'S cold!

To put the freeze into perspective, the coldest temperature ever recorded in Toronto was -31.3 C on Jan. 4, 1981. It was -44.7 C with the windchill. The coldest place on Earth is Antarctica, where it was -93 on Aug. 10, 2010.

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RANDOM FACT #31 - The Last PUBLIC EXECUTION in the United States was in 1936...

Many scholars maintain that the unprecedented nationwide attention and coverage the execution received caused the United States to outlaw public executions. Therefore, Bethea was the last individual to be hanged publicly in the United States.

A FEW THINGS ABOUT... Autumn

Autumn, also known as fall in North American English, is one of the four temperate seasons. Autumn marks the transition from summer into winter, in September (Northern Hemisphere) or March (Southern Hemisphere), when the arrival of night becomes noticeably earlier and the temperature cools considerably. One of its main features is the shedding of leaves from deciduous trees.

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Do you use the word Fall or Autumn? Take our poll on SCG Niagara!

RANDOM FACT #30 - 'SLEEPER HIT' is the Term Given to a Film or Music that Becomes SUCCESSFUL Despite Having LITTLE Promotion.