Humble Pi: When Math Goes Wrong in the Real World

by Matt Parker

All humans are stupid when it comes to learning formal mathematics. This is the process of taking what evolution has given us and extending our skills beyond what is reasonable. We were not born with any kind of ability to intuitively understand fractions, negative numbers, or the many other strange concepts developed by mathematics, but, over time, your brain can slowly learn how to deal with them.

Precision and accuracy often get jumbled together, but they are two very different things. Precision is the level of detail given, and accuracy is how true something is. I can accurately say I was born on Earth, but that’s not very precise. I can say I was born at precisely latitude 37.229° N, longitude 115.811° W, but that is not at all accurate. Which gives you a lot of wiggle room when answering questions if people don’t demand that you be accurate and precise. Accurately, I can say that someone drank all the beer. Precisely, I can say that an Albanian who holds several Tetris world records drank all the beer. But I’d rather not be precise and accurate at the same time, on the grounds I may incriminate myself.