Humble Pi: When Math Goes Wrong in the Real World

by Matt Parker

A million seconds from now is just shy of eleven days and fourteen hours. Not so bad. I could wait that long. It’s within two weeks. A billion seconds is over thirty-one years. A trillion seconds from now is after the year 33,700 CE.

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.

The universe has given us only two units of time: the year and the day.

The British Empire was all about trains, and British engineers prided themselves on their stiff upper bridges.

I find that a lot of nostalgia about how things were manufactured better in the past comes down to survivor bias.

“Mathematicians aren’t people who find math easy; they’re people who enjoy how hard it is.”