# Friday the 13th and the Datetime Method3

Posted by Cleve Moler,

Today is Friday, the 13th. In many parts of the world, today is regarded as unlucky. But I want to revisit an old question: is today unlikely? What are the chances that the 13th of any month falls on a Friday? Computing the answer makes use of a new MATLAB® feature, the datetime method.... read more >>

# The Dragon Curve

Posted by Cleve Moler,

# Fun With The Pascal Triangle3

Posted by Cleve Moler,

The Wikipedia article on Pascal's Triangle has hundreds of properties of the triangle and there are dozens of other Web pages devoted to it. Here are a few facts that I find most interesting. ... read more >>

# Happy Valentine’s Day

Posted by Cleve Moler,

Edward Scheinerman, The Mathematics Lover's Companion, Yale University Press, 2017 https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300223002/mathematics-lovers-companion... read more >>

# Two Other MATLABs, in Bangladesh and in Hindi2

Posted by Cleve Moler,

This post is about the words "Matlab" and "matlab", in upper and lower case, and without a trademark symbol. Matlab with a capital "M" is a district in Bangladesh. "matlab" with a lower case "m" is a common word in the Hindi language. ... read more >>

# My First Computer, the Burroughs 205 Datatron1

Posted by Cleve Moler,

The first computer that I seriously used was the Burroughs 205 Datatron. I actually used two different machines, one at Caltech for two years in 1959-61 and one at the University of Utah in the summer of 1960. Both the technology and the style of usage were wildly different from today's computers.... read more >>

# How Far Apart Are Two Random Points in a Hypercube?3

Posted by Cleve Moler,

Two days ago I wrote about random points in a square. At the last minute I added the paragraph asking about the generalization to random points in a cube. I have to admit that I didn't check the Web to see what was known about the question.... read more >>

# How Far Apart Are Two Random Points in a Square?5

Posted by Cleve Moler,

How far apart can you expect two points chosen at random in the unit square to be? I found this problem on the YouTube channel maintained by Presh Talwalkar, Mind Your Decisions. He correctly calls it a very hard puzzle. At first, I guessed the answer might be $1/2$. But the correct answer is more interesting than that.... read more >>