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A nice arithmetical trick to show to children is the 1089 trick. It’s not really a trick, just a surprising and cool arithmetical result that appears to be inexplicable at first sight. And a bit spooky. What is it about 1089 that is so universally significant!? Here’s the trick… Take any 3 digit number for [...]

Miserly Robert Farries, schoolmaster of New Abbey near Dumfries in Scotland, decided that he would only wear clothes that he could take from scarecrows. Between 1792 and 1806, he wore nothing else!

(Pi by Mykl Roventine) The 14th March (3/14 in American date notation) has over recent years become Pi day because it famously starts with 3.14 New Scientist magazine posted several fascinating facts about Pi and it seemed apropos to share them with you. Did you know.. you can use the stars to calculate Pi ….or [...]

…AND DID YOU PACK YOUR CASE YOURSELF, SIR? The ancient Egyptian mummy of famous King Rameses the Great, or Rameses II as he is more commonly known had his own real-life passport! On the passport it listed his occupation as “King (deceased)”! In 1974, the mummy had to be flown from the Cairo Museum to [...]

The famous Scottish bard, the Ayrshire ploughman, the people’s poet – Robert Burns was called many things – but was not known by the contraction, “Robbie” in his lifetime. Nor Rabbie. He was known as Robert, or Rob; and he refers to himself as Rantin’ Robin in a poem, but Robbie was a later, sentimental invention. [...]