h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Hi Electric Egyptian!

Thanks for the feedback on the Blancmange article. It's in the queue for the <./>FrontPage</.>, and should be there some time within the next week or two.

I wrote it as I thought it was interesting, but I needed to add a bit of humour to lighten it up for non-mathematicians. I'm currently studying maths in my spare time with the UK's Open University, but I'm always on the lookout for things which can be added to the Edited Guide here. I'm a volunteer Scout in this place, so I help people get their articles through PeerReview, as well as writing the odd one myself.

Thanks too for the maths humour links. I'll watch the "Look Around You" video when I get a minute - they're wickedly funny spoofs of Open University broadcasts.

Are you into maths? We have a Researchers' Maths Group at A895205, but it's gone very quiet recently. Some people are still subscribed to it though, if you had an urgent need to talk about maths for some strange reason.

Icy

Thanks for your feedback, Icy. I loved maths in secondary school, passed first year university level calculus and taught "slow learners" for one year, at secondary level.
Computing has brought me back to the subject after a long break. Fractals got me reading a lot of popular maths sites, which led on to an interest in graphics.

I have to admit that the economics of the past two decades have also kept numeracy skills honed.

I would be interested to know which area you are studing, as it is such a vast subject.

I haven't specialised (yet). I've completed around a third of the units I need for a degree. Last year was a "double unit" in pure maths topics: analysis (aka calculus), linear algebra, group theory. This year it's another double in applied maths. After that, I'll pick and choose from the third-level units. They also run a "History of Maths" course which I'm looking forward to. I might well pilfer some of it for h2g2.

My working life started with computing in the mid-eighties. I've since moved on to IT management, and I really miss it.

This Maths History link might be of use:

http://www-history.mcs.st-and.ac.uk/history/

Thanks EE, a very useful resource

I watched the Look Around You at the weekend - hilarious.

It is funny.

I'm really pleased with all the maths links on H2G2.

Secondary School level mathematics are very well taught these days:

http://www.eo.ucar.edu/skymath/

I find this site about very big numbers quite interesting:

http://www.vendian.org/envelope/dir0/getting_a_feel.html

I find myself wondering about how much mathematical knowledge one needs to become good at computer work.

It depends what you mean by 'computer work'.

General office skills shouldn't require any more than common sense and arithmetic.

If you're programming, particularly using procedural languages, then you'll need some idea of logic - the difference between conditional statements like AND, OR and NOT.

I don't think maths is a direct prerequisite for computing - it's just that they both require clear and precise thinking. If you're good at one, you're likely to be good at the other.

Thanks for the clear feedback.

Logic I have learned from negotiating with the impeccably inhuman behaviour of my computer. I don't know whether people or instinctively
logical or not. It seems to be learned.

The maths end of things has me very interested as I've started looking at logarithms again from a new angle. I intend to learn some programming as time goes on.