Tag Archives: elegant solutions

How Reinforced Earth works

Posted on May 8, 2019 by dougaj4

“Reinforced Earth” is the name of  a construction system widely used in retaining walls around the World.  Here is a short video demonstrating how the system works, which is both informative and entertaining:

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Another (very slow) way of computing pi

Posted on January 24, 2019 by dougaj4

The previous post included 100 Python code one-liners for calculating pi that recalculates in a fraction of a second.  The video below shows an alternative approach that is a little slower: How much slower?  If you had a computer that would … Continue reading →

Posted in Bach, Maths, Newton | Tagged , , | 2 Comments

Elegant proofs – more Pythagoras

Posted on March 1, 2018 by dougaj4

Browsing the Plus Magazine site recently, I was struck the proof of Pythagoras’ Theorem shown in the animation below: Not just because it is an elegant proof, but also because of the author, the 20th President of the United States, … Continue reading →

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Elegant solutions, 192 of them

Posted on February 9, 2012 by dougaj4

The Edge is a place where they seek: To arrive at the edge of the world’s knowledge, seek out the most complex and sophisticated minds, put them in a room together, and have them ask each other the questions they … Continue reading →

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Elegant solutions, Simple Harmonic Motion, and the hole through the middle of the Earth

Posted on June 14, 2010 by dougaj4

No, not the hole (beloved of conspiracy theorists everywhere) where our alien overlords keep their UFO’s, but rather the equally imaginary hole from Pole to Pole (beloved of physics teachers everywhere) where we can drop in objects and watch them travel … Continue reading →

Posted in Differential Equations, Maths, Newton | Tagged , , , | 5 Comments