Tag: Mathematics

How Card Counting Works and How to Identify Hot Streaks When Gambling

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Counting cards is quite simple, as long as ones memory is sharp. Low cards (e.g. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6) are assigned a value of +1, mid cards (e.g. 7, 8, and 9) have a value of 0, and high cards (e.g. 10, jack, queen, king, and ace) have a value of -1. The player counting desires a positive count as it indicates multiple high cards in the deck and on their way toward the table. Counts above +7 is when a table is considered hot providing the player with multiple good hands in succession. Streaks although appearing random, occur in a wave like function, so when a down streak is observed, smaller bets should be placed until a hot streak is observed at which time higher bets should be placed

The Symbolism of the Islamic Garden

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Islamic gardens act as symbolic representation of the archetypal eternal heavenly garden, an attempt to provide a small peak into what could potentially wait for a person in the afterlife. Repetition of geometric shapes in Islamic gardens help to emphasize the link between the physical world and thereafter. Circular fountains represent Jannah, the Islamic representation of heaven, as the circle is symbolic of heaven. The square is always utilized as a symbol of the Earth, with circular fountains often found within square indentations to act as a metaphor for heaven and Earth meeting. The term “Jannat-al-Firdaws” which means “Garden of Paradise” in Arabic, is mentioned many times throughout the Quran, with Chapter 55 of Surat al-Rahman (pronounced “suu-rat al rack-man”), which means the “all merciful” in Arabic, holding the best and most descriptive accounts of what this garden truly would look like if experienced. Water plays a crucial role in these accounts, with multiple layers of symbolism for life present which is why water is the most important element within an Islamic garden as it is symbolic of the soul. Rain was and continues to be viewed as a merciful gift from heaven within Islamic culture as Islam stems from one of the hottest regions in the world. Water is essential to Islam and an Islamic paradise garden cannot exist without the incorporation of water to some degree. Islamic gardens are separated into 4 specific quadrants because of the “chahar bagh” (pronounced “cha-harr bahh”) which means “4 gardens” in the Persian language of Farsi, directly related to the 4 rivers of paradise, including a river of milk, honey, wine, and water, an order and harmony which underlies everything within an Islamic garden

The Etymology of American Industrialist Henry Ford’s Model T Automobile and the First Mass Produced Vehicle

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Henry Ford named the iconic Model T automobile as he did because of the way he built his company. Ford started with the Model A and continued to improve the design, moving through each letter of the alphabet the way modern software changes numerically with each upgrade (eg. Model A, Model B, Model C alongside software 1.0, software 2.0, software 3.0 etc.). It was Ford’s 20th design that met his stringent personal requirements allowing the Model T to become the first mass produced vehicle in 1908

The Etymology of “Tetris” and the Block Shapes Available to Players

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The videogame Tetris was named as such due to its creator, Alexey Pajitnov, amalgamating the Ancient Greek prefix “tetra” which means “4”, a direct reference to the various block shapes of Tetris which always have 4 cubes, and the term “tennis” as this was Pajitnov’s favorite sport. The shapes are referred to as “tetrominoes” and consist of an S-shape, Z-shape, T-shape, L-shape, line-shape, 7-shape, and a square-shape

The Reason the World Clock Starts in Greenwich, England

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The reason the world clock starts in Greenwich, England is because during the 19th century, the majority of sea charts used Greenwich, England as the Prime Meridian for the 0° coordinate. In addition to this, during the early advent of the British railway network, trains could end up in accidents if the timing of coming into and/or out of stations was off by even a small margin of error. Because the sun rises earlier in some parts of Britain and later in the rest, these variables needed to be compensated for which was accomplished by introducing more accurate clocks and the concept of time zones. Up until this point, horsepower was the fastest way to travel and because of that, sundials which had been invented in and used since the 9th century A.D., were satisfactory. It was only with the emergence of locomotives that this system of time keeping became antiquated

The Reason Scientists Can Calculate the Distance and Velocity of Galaxies and Stars

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Scientists understand the immense distance between galaxies and stars because of American astronomer Edwin Hubble’s theory of the expanding universe, as it is now understood that galaxies drift from the observer proportional to their distance, meaning the further a star is, the faster it continues to move away from the observer. This phenomenon is referred to as “Hubble–Lemaître’s Law”. Astronomers can calculate how fast a star is moving away from the Earth by observing the Doppler shift of the light it projects, as yellow light becomes red light as a star moves away and yellow light becomes blue light as it approaches closer. A formulae is then used to calculate the distance from the source point. Redshift is observed throughout the universe which confirms that the universe is indeed expanding at a phenomenal rate of speed

The Reason Financial Investment Platform Robinhood Halted the Ability to Trade GameStop Stock in 2021

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On January 28, 2021, soon after the opening bell, Robinhood and several other major trading platforms announced the suspension of the ability to purchase GameStop stock, delivering a devastating blow to the WallStreetBets subreddit community which had been helping to elevate the stocks price point by locking out new investors and causing the stock price to tumble dramatically. The rationale for this decision was that extreme volatility could create unforeseen economic problems in the future (e.g. unsustainable economic bubble etc.) but many retail investors viewed this outcome as professional investors leveraging their authority with the U.S. government and the financial industry to stop the public from continuing to financially annihilate large, established trading firms. In addition to the official reason provided, retail trading platforms are not designed to handle the torrent of transactions related to events like the ascendancy of GameStop which played a factor in why Robinhood and other platforms succame to the pressure to halt all future trading of GameStop stock. Robinhood claimed that the company did not have the liquidity on hand to cover the trades and gains being made. Unsurprisingly, the price of GameStop stock rapidly declined, devastating retail investors and highlighting the fact that the investment market is rigged toward the wealthy and powerful perhaps having a distinct advantage over their counterparts. Experts argue that this intervention unnaturally drove the price point of GameStop stock down, acting to reverse the effects of community based organization and investment. It was the clearing houses however that truly forced Robinhood and other trading platforms into capitulating. When a stock is purchased or sold, the transaction does not settle and finalize until 2 business days after the transaction time stamp, something which is unbeknownst to many investors. During this 2 business day period, due to regulation, brokerages and clearing firms are not permitted to use customer capital to fund the collateral use of those 2 business days, therefore being legally required to leverage the firms own capital. Robinhood argued that it did not possess the corporate capital required to facilitate the enormous volume of GameStop stock trades. It should be noted, Robinhood has repeatedly denied that it was under pressure from hedge fund executives, financial organizations, and the professional financial industry as a whole to stop the short squeeze occurring for those who chose to short sell GameStop stock

Inventions Mesopotamia Gifted to the World Still Used During the Modern Day

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The Mesopotamians invented large scale wheat production, the potters wheel which allows for the making of pottery bowls, cups, and plates, used for consumption and collection, boats which could sail all the way to India created from reeds, and the stylus which is effectively a pen created from reeds, which led to the development of the world’s first writing system. These are just a few examples gifted to the world by the first great civilization; Mesopotamia. Every written word in the western world can trace its origins back to the cuneiform of Mesopotamia and the study of mathematics also derives directly from the Mesopotamian civilization. Reeds were used for measuring distances, based upon the size of the Pharaoh Djer (pronounced “jur”), with the first standard measurement derived from Djer’s elbow crease to the tip of his middle finger, and the second standard measuring a full arm span of both arms spread as wide as the body will allow them. The Mesopotamians invented the mathematics of time keeping by using the creases of their fingers with each finger containing 3 creases therefore 12 creases for each hand. This system included the thumb and when accounting for the back of the hand, a base system was invented which was used to count between 0 – 60. This system was primarily used to tell time, as there are 60 seconds in a minute and 60 minutes in an hour, which meant that the day would be divided into 2 periods each of 12 hours

The Evolution of Primitive and Sophisticated Neural Networks

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neural-network

The human brain has 100,000,000,000,000 (100 trillion) connections and 86,000,000,000 (86 billion) neurons, which is more connections and neurons than there are stars in the Milky Way Galaxy. Ironically, the majority of the most successful creatures on Earth do not have a brain; organisms like plants, coral, and jellyfish. The sea squirt is a primary example as it has just 200 neurons, allowing it only to perceive and display simple interaction with the environment by sensing light and moving its flagellum. The sea squirt moves around until it finds a rock, then it dumps its tail and uses those once dedicated neurons for different applications, staying anchored to this spot for the rest of its life. Neurons were originally designed to allow for simple motion and movement, but as evolution progressed steadily, neural networks began to build and design intelligent life which is capable of consciousness and a sense of self but also more abstract concepts like art, mathematics, and science

The First Ancient Greek Polymath

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The Ancient Greek philosopher Thales, considered the world’s first philosopher by Aristotle, used geometry to calculate the distance of ships from the shoreline, the height of the Great Pyramids of Egypt, was the first person to predict a solar eclipse, and posited a cause for earthquakes. Thales perceived that the earth floated upon water like a giant raft which of course was wrong, but his scientific inquiry into the reasons as to why things occur rather than attributing it to the god’s was the first glimmering scintillation of a revolutionary way of thinking. Thales inspired more great minds like Pythagoras who developed the concept that numbers and mathematics could explain the universe, and Hippocrates who developed an ethical code for practicing medicine