Category Archives: Maths

How one cancelled train can ruin the whole system

Posted on 22 May 2018 by Spuggy

After my blog post about how maths means trains seem more frequent than they are, here’s another even more irritating rail-based maths problem. From Germany, I’ve been feeling quietly smug watching the chaos on the UK Northern and Thameslink lines … Continue reading →

Posted in Maths, Trams | Leave a comment

What is the top-heaviest country?

Posted on 15 March 2018 by Spuggy

This post is based on an interesting Twitter thread about country populations! In particular, this pair of tweets from Josh Fruhlinger: (2/3 of the US population is in the top 15 states, which is fewer states than i expected but … Continue reading →

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Frankfurt Sneak Statistics IV – Sne4k

Posted on 16 January 2018 by Spuggy

Here we are again.* A year of Frankfurt movie sneak previews, in statistics! You can see 2014, 2015 and 2016, now without further ado, here’s 2017!

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Why we need more continents

Posted on 8 August 2017 by Spuggy

In any group of geography nerds, one of the biggest peeves will be “Europe’s not a continent”. From this perspective, Europe is just a peninsula of Asia, and the listing of Europe in the seven traditional continents (Africa, Antarctica, Asia, Australia/Oceania, … Continue reading →

Posted in Maths, Science | Leave a comment

Did Wikipedia hint at the Labour surge?

Posted on 11 June 2017 by Spuggy

Fair to say, most people did not predict the result of the election. A few pollsters were correct – Survation and YouGov, take a bow – but most thought that even if May didn’t get the landslide she wanted, at … Continue reading →

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Frankfurt Sneak Statistics III – Sn3ak

Posted on 31 December 2016 by Spuggy

Here we are again. Another year of OV Sneak Preview – the showing of a random new movie each week at Frankfurt Metropolis cinema. In 2014 and 2015, I collected all the statistics of the films we saw and did … Continue reading →

Posted in Germany, Maths, Sneak Stats | Leave a comment

Some Eurovision 2016 statistics

Posted on 15 May 2016 by Spuggy

Today, 200 million Europeans wake up with a banging headache, an empty liquor cabinet and almost no memory of any of the music they heard last night. Yes, it’s Eurovision time! In the interests of openness, Eurovision makes all the … Continue reading →

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Frankfurt Sneak Preview Stats – The Sequel

Posted on 15 January 2016 by Spuggy

Another year, another… year of films? Anyway, here are some stats about the Sneak Preview films we had at Frankfurt Metropolis Cinestar. You can see last year’s here, and compare with what happened this year. Get ready for some movie … Continue reading →

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Frankfurt Maths 4: Sneak Preview

Posted on 29 December 2014 by Spuggy

Every week, the Frankfurt Metropolis Cinestar cinema shows a “Sneak Preview” of a random upcoming English film. We attend every week, which means that over the course of the year, we get to see a good selection of everything Hollywood … Continue reading →

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Frankfurt Maths 3: The S-Bahn to St Ives

Posted on 29 August 2014 by Spuggy

After weeks of work, the S-Bahn is running properly once more! To celebrate, here’s one of my favourite little maths problems. It’s something I first noticed during the torturously long wait for a Merseyrail train before the timetable improvements. I … Continue reading →

Posted in Germany, Maths, Transport | 1 Comment