Math Jokes at The Pi Mile Race

In belated honor of Pi Day, my husband and I ran the 39th Annual Pi Mile Race at Georgia Tech last Saturday.  Weeks before the race we talked of training and friendly competition but somehow never managed to get out for a single practice run.  The day before the race, there was a tornado alert in Atlanta and the city shut down in fear.  Although we were secretly hoping the race would be cancelled, no one who admit it.  On Saturday morning we woke up to bright and sunny skies and reluctantly headed to campus.  

We casually ran side by side and inevitably the pi jokes ensued: 

Why have you half-way finished the pi mile race when you only ran π/3?
cos(π/3)=1/2

Why did the sign read 1/2 way point after running only π/6?
'cause sin(π/6)=1/2

We made a full circle and finished the pi race where we started.

We had a splendid time at the Pi Race.  It turned out to be a fantastic and entertaining way to start a productive day!  I hope this gets us pumped for the Peachtree Road Race on July 4th.  Can you think of a joke involving trig functions and periodicity?

FIFA World Cup Predictions and Outcome

Congrats to the 2010 champions, ¡Viva España! What were the chances?

Well I do not know much about soccer, but I do know that JP-Morgan, UBS and Goldman Sachs issue in depth reports every fourth year calculating the next champion based on predictive modeling. Turns out, England, the team JP-Morgan's 70 page report referred to as champs lost in the Round of 16, while UBS and Goldman reports predicted Brazil would end up on the top. C'mon... did you really need a complicated algorithm to predict that?

After reviewing the reports, the questions are: Where did Wall Street go wrong in their models (and why isn't Congress investigating it)? What was the data set, assumptions, independent and confounding variables? Is it necessary to include GDP in the calculation, and how about including team performance outside of the World Cup to the data set? Can you think of a better methodology to predict a winner? Clearly, there is no absolute truth in predictions, but we can try to improve their ability to foresee the future.

Or perhaps we should save ourselves the trouble and just depend on Paul the Octopus to call the shots?! Now I'll toot my vuvuzela to that!

Infinity Set at Wimbledon?

Today was a historic day for tennis not to be forgotten. American John Isner was victorious over Frenchman Nicolas Mahut in a first round Wimbledon match lasting a world record 11 hours and 5 minutes spanned over 3 days. My hats off to these immortal athletes for their cool sportsmanship and their mindblowing endurance - they practically played the equivalent of 4 full tennis matches just among each other without a slam of the racquet or slip to the umpire! Sports broadcasters have dubbed the final set as the "Infinity Set", however how can it be an infinity set when the fifth set actually terminated at 70-68? Although a true infinity set is theoretically possible, I wouldn't doubt that Wimbledon officials reevalute the tiebreaking rules before that becomes a reality.