maths facts

• Mathematics is important in many different types of jobs, including engineering, business, science, medicine and more.
• It is believed that Ancient Egyptians used complex mathematics such as algebra, arithmetic and geometry as far back as 3000 BC.
• It wasn’t until the 16th century that most mathematical symbols were invented. Before this time math equations were written in words, making it very time consuming.
• What comes after a million, billion and trillion? Why a quadrillion, quintillion, sextillion, septillion, octillion and nonillion of course.
• Cutting a cake into 8 pieces is possible with just 3 slices, can you work out how?
• An icosagon is a shape with 20 sides.
• A three dimensional parallelogram is called a parallelepiped.
• Trigonometry is the study of the relationship between the angles of triangles and their sides.
• The smallest ten prime numbers are: 2, 3, 5, 7, 11, 13, 17, 19, 23, 29.
• The name of the popular search engine ‘Google’ came from a misspelling of the word ‘googol’, which is a very, very large number (the number one followed by one hundred zeros to be exact).
• A ‘googolplex’ is the number 1 followed by a googol zeros, this number is so big that it can’t be written because there isn’t enough room in the universe to fit it in! It would also take a length of time far greater than the age of the universe just to write the numbers.
• The number Pi (the ratio of the circumference to the diameter of a circle) can’t be expressed as a fraction, this means it is an irrational number. When written as a decimal it never repeats and never ends.
• Here is Pi written to 50 decimal places: 3.14159265358979323846264338327950288419716939937510
• If two quantities have a ratio of approximately 1.618, they are said to be in the golden ratio. This ratio has been used throughout history to design aesthetically pleasing art works such as the Parthenon. It also appears in paintings, music, the design of books, and even in nature.