periodicvideos-ABC-News

Some Valentine's Day and romantically-themed videos from across my various channels!

Due to some time constraints, I will be not be able to post a detailed blog about Zequals.

The estimation method is featured in a new book by Rob Eastaway.

Here is the main video on Numberphile:


And here are some extras:


In addition, my resident graph expert Dave Wiley (see previous blog) drew up two graphs to analyse the strength or weaknesses of zequals.

This first one shows what happens when you square a number.

The blue line is the true answer, the red line is a zequal plot.

See a hi-res version of this graph on Flickr.

It shows what happens when you multiply two numbers (x and y axis) using the zequals technique.

White areas show where you answer is dead right.

Red areas show where your zequals answer is higher than the true answer... blue areas show where is it is too low!?

Again, a hi-res version is on Flickr.

My latest Numberphile video comes from a visit to Opta in London.

I spent a couple of days learning how the harvest and analyse statistics from football games.

Here's the first video - another is coming soon:


The video is essentially a statistical analysis of Andres Iniesta's winning goal in the 2010 World Cup final. (Spain beat the Netherlands 1-0)

Here's the graphic with all the stats on it:

HI-RES VERSION ON FLICKR

Sam Green - the stats guru featured in the video - shared a couple of other nuggets with me.

The assisting pass by Cec Fabrgas was his 39th and final touch of the game. It was the 1,045th pass of the game and Spain's 657th.

Iniesta's successful shot was the 34th of the match, and Spain's last.

Emails like this make me much happier than any YouTube viewing statistics...

Dear Brady,

Thank you. I just wanted to say that.

Physics, maths, science... your videos are truly a university for me. I could watch them for hours and I do. 

Even though I don't really remember much after I know I'm learning, and most of all, I know I'm having fun. Though I'm a fan, I watched numerous of your vidoes on many channels, you still surprise me. 

Just today I was like: Words! He has a whole channel on words! These are, like, my second favorite thing on the world! 

And that's another thing. You provide videos on so many topics it's mindboggling. I would never thought that, when I was watching my first numberphile video (my fav channel to this day, on youtube, ever), that I will learn from you not only about numbers, but on words! biographies! 

I mean, once again, You are truly a university for me. 

Thank you, thank you, thank you. 

Dziękuje i wszystkiego najlepszego w życiu, jesteś wspaniałym człowiekiem, 

Leszek, Warsaw 

(shared with permission)

This is something I recently stumbled upon in the course of making some Numberphile videos.

It all started in San Francisco at a YouTube EDU summit, where I met a bunch of clever YouTubers.

I took advantage of the situation and asked many of them: "What's your favourite number"?

Here's the resulting video:



I then invited the viewers to submit their favourite numbers, preferably with an explanation.

Thousands of people responded (and continue to do so!)

So with all this data, it seemed obvious some analysis should be done.

Unfortunately I lacked the time and skill for such an endeavour.

But fortunately a software writer named Dave Wiley (right), from Colorado, came to the rescue.

We had to draw a line in the sand (or we'd never have started) so selected the first 6,041 comments.

From these, Dave used a combination of programming and human checking to glean a list of 5,286 number choices.

Here's one observation Dave made about reading everyone's explanations: "It's people sharing a bit of themselves. I love these little glimpses into the way other people think."

How true.

So what were the results?

Well, the most commonly selected number was seven (238 votes).

Very close behind was three (225 votes).

Here are the numbers which achieved 100 votes:

1. Seven (238 votes)
2. Three (225)
3. Forty-Two (204)
4. Eight (202)
5. Thirteen (200)
6. Two (175)
7. Four (174)
8. Pi (152)
9. Seventeen (130)
10. Twelve (127)
11. Nine (126)
12. Five (123)
13. Sixty-Nine (118)
14. Twenty-Seven (113)
15. Twenty-One (111)
16. Eleven (105)
17. Golden Ratio (100)