Everyday Math and Science


Interesting problems from everyday life that can often be answered with elementary mathematics and physics.

I consider these great answers and anecdotes for questions like “When will I ever use this?”.


Expected profit for a 50/50 Raffle

An auto race I recently attended also ran a 50/50 raffle, which is where a single winner receives 50% of the money collected from ticket sales. Just like any form of gambling, it’s almost certainly a bad idea on average, but I wasn’t able to figure out …


The theoretical minimum time for competition speed climbing

After watching a short documentary on the state and progress of competition speed climbing, with times going ever lower and quotes like “we never though X time was possible, and now were not sure how low times will go” I was …


Uncle Gimpy's Intellectifier

An old reference sheet with simple formulae for length, area, volume as well as useful conversions. It’s called , and is meant to be folded up and kept in a wallet or purse. This is certainly from a time before internet …


Calculating the number of atoms in the Sun

It is said Freeman Dyson attempted to complete this task at the age of 4 or 5. In this write up we complete the calculation and simultaneously present the necessary basics of chemistry and measurement.