On Monday, Singapore’s Health Minister Ong Ye Kung reported that 80,000 seniors aged 60 and above have yet to take their Covid-19 booster shots, urging them to do so as the city-state is expecting a new wave of Omicron infections in the next few months.
The minister added that the first batch of Covid-19 vaccines were engineered more for the “wild-type” virus, and now that the coronavirus has mutated into the Delta and Omicron variants, we need at least three doses of vaccines for “effective” protection—and a fourth jab (or a second booster shot) is recommended for those who’ve so far lived on this planet for at least three scores and two tens (or four scores)—aged 80 and above.
Like thousands of my fellow skeptics, when we read or hear this kind of corona update from a local politician on a Monday, our skepticism index goes up at least twenty points. It sounds more like an indecent number of WHO-approved vaccines are nearing their expiry dates, so they need to come up with some creative eleventh-hour strategies not to waste away those tens of thousands of doses.
These days, even developing countries with low vaccination rates are likely to turn down any donated near-expiry vaccines from those high-GDP hoarders. They’d reply, “Thank you very much for your [“insincere”] donation!” followed by some PC excuses not to offend the donors.
One subtle way to salvage a fraction of these surplus doses is to use some mortality statistics to scare off those who’ve yet to be jabbed or boosted.
For instance, we’re statistically being told that the probability of unvaccinated seniors aged 60 and above ending in the intensive care unit (ICU) or dying from Covid-19 is 1/25, but the figure drops to 1/100 if they’ve been doubly jabbed, or nosedives to a mere 3/1000 if they’ve been boosted.
Minister Ong emphasized that “It makes a difference whether you have taken 0, 1, 2 or 3 shots.” So, the unvaxxed would better pay heed to his life-and-death warning unless they plan to journey to the other side sooner than later.
The sombre message is: Wake up to your minister’s advice if you don’t want to have a minister at your premature wake conducting nightly services to your loved ones and friends and colleagues. The decision is yours to act if you want to prolong your stay on this planet by an extra few years or decades.
Let’s pray that the unvaccinated or unboosted lot would fear Covid-19 more than Covid-🇸🇬, while not letting themselves be paralyzed by either one.
The advent of cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Ether has provided math educators worldwide with fertile resources to indulge themselves in creative mathematical posing and solving.
Unfortunately, the negative perception that cryptocurrency or crypto is a vector for serious organized crime and money laundering has led millions of half-informed or risk-averse folks to adopt a wait-and-see attitude vis-Ă -vis Bitcoin transactions.
Who/What Is Satoshi Nakamoto?
Nobody knows the identity of Satoshi Nakamoto. If the name isn’t a he or she or it, could the name be a covert group of cryptographers and mathematicians?
Like the modern-day equivalent of the Bourbaki group—the collective pseudonym of a group of predominantly French mathematicians in the 1930s, who tried to axiomatize mathematics to make it more rigorous?
So far, the few suspects—digital-currency addict Nick Szabo, Japanese mathematician Shinichi Mochizuki, and Co.—all have denied being the founder of Bitcoin, except for Australian computer scientist who loudly but unprovenly claimed that he is Nakamoto.
Crypto Math
Posing fertile crypto math questions is only limited by our imagination. Thanks to Bitcoin or cryptocurrency, NFTs, and the Metaverse, I’ve toyed around with a number of crypto math questions.
Below are a sample of Bitcoin-related questions that I hope would make their way into a math booklet fit for publication in a-not-too-distant future.
Bitcoins are divided into Satoshis: one hundred million Satoshis in each Bitcoin. At the current Bitcoin price, what fraction of a U.S. cent is worth the smallest fraction of a Bitcoin?
In 2010, a pizza restaurant agreed to accept ten thousand Bitcoins in exchange for two large pizzas. At today’s exchange rate, how much would each pizza be worth?
In September 2021, El Salvador approved Bitcoin as a secondary currency; in April 2022, Central African Republic followed suit. Which rogue or war-torn nation in Asia or the Middle East would be the first one to make Bitcoin its official currency? Or would it be “fine” city Singapore that would lead the way in becoming SE Asia’s crypto hub?
Crypto Apocalypse: What are the odds that due to hyperinflation (or a possible WW3 in the aftermath of the senseless Ukraine-Russia war) people would start losing faith in Bitcoin to the point that it suffered the same fate as the Zimbabwean dollar bills?
A golf resort is rumored to have been gifted with 13.257 ETH and 12.5 bitcoin from a Middle Eastern prince. How much did the shady resort receive in cash donation from their criminal donor?
Crypto Winter Is Coming!
With news of a crypto winter in the horizon, let’s hope that the mathematics of Bitcoin or cryptocurrency wouldn’t deter math educators globally from getting involved in creative mathematical thinking and problem solving.
I don’t know about you, but I’m waiting for Bitcoin to drop under $10,000 as my next buy alert. The future lies in Bitcoin—or in blockchain.
Moons ago, long before Trump’s MAGA slogan resonated among blue-collar workers and white evangelicals, I was surprised to read a parent’s guide mentioning that some American homeschoolers had mixed feelings about using foreign editions of Singapore math textbooks because of the lack of political freedom in the island-state.
No matter how value-for-money Singapore math titles are, or how impressive the “fine” city’s top ranking in both PISA and TIMSS is, some American parents and teachers would have nothing to do with a country that stifles freedom of speech, restricts political freedom, or cracks down on alternative views that often portray the government in a negative light.
Singapore is a partly free country.
This week, we read that in the new normal Singapore has fared worse than the previous year as far as political rights and civil liberties are concerned. If 50 were the passing mark, then the island-state fell short, by scoring a disappointing 48 out of 100 on political freedom.
Singapore’s Freedom in the World https://freedomhouse.org/country/singapore
Selective Internet Accessibility
Less well-known is Singapore’s average performance or ranking in terms of the public’s internet access, especially when both locals and aliens thought they could easily access the internet (except for some banned websites on politics, religion, and sex, or most political blogs that don’t depict the country’s political leaders positively), compared to their counterparts in China, where Google, Facebook, and Twitter are banned.
Singapore’s Freedom on the Net https://freedomhouse.org/country/singapore/freedom-net/2020
Political Freedom: Singapore vs. Others
Although we may not agree on the methodology used to compute the scores, which are calculated on a weighted scale, however, the global freedom ranking of most countries appears pretty accurate.
Let’s look at some freedom scores, by comparing how Singapore fares vis-à -vis some rich or rogue countries.
Since the start of the coronavirus pandemic, in the aftermath of more pseudo-free nations going rogue, or more institutions paying lip service to democratic processes, I remember less than three years ago coining tongue-in-cheek “Make Singapore Free Again.”
The Fear Factor in Singapore
The Fear Factor as a Common Denominator
What are some long-term consequences for math educators living in a politically semi-free milieu? Teachers who need to seek permission from their HODs or principals to start a blog or a Facebook page; or writers who need to consult editors or publishers before they start working on a politically incorrect or irreverent math title.
When I started blogging, I still recall that those who had a say in my pay wanted me to choose a different name that doesn’t include “Singapore Math” as part of the blog’s identity. Apparently, every time they Googled “Singapore math,” they landed on my site, and they’re uncomfortable with that. I refused to compromise because I thought then (and now) that the idea of censoring or threatening me for raising some unethical practices in educational publishing is laughably ridiculous, not to say, mathematically or educationally anti-democratic.
It’s not an accident or coincidence that high-GDP Singapore has probably the lowest number of math bloggers, or the least number of math teachers on Twitter, in the developed world.
For some of us, who look like an odd in a sea of evens, the “fear factor” of speaking up and speaking out is real, even if our audience is outside Singapore. As long as we are a “mathematical or political nobody,” it’s probably safe to say that we’re at quasi-zero risk of being banned or censored, while being aware that a small army of vigilantes are watching us 24/7/365 just in case we go “politically astray.”
POFMA Math
During the lockdown, when a few Opposition candidates appeared to be unfairly targeted for their “fake” comments, I entertained the possibility that soon the authorities would be targeting math bloggers or textbook authors, who poked fun at some MOE directives or policies, by irreverently christening POFMA Math.
What are the odds that Singapore math authors would be the next to be POFMA-ed?
Poverty or Democracy
For decades, the unspoken or unchallenged political message in Singapore for Singaporeans and foreigners is: High GDP or Low Political Liberty. You can’t have both!
Why can’t your say and your pay go hand in hand? The lie that a country’s economic prosperity and political freedom are inversely proportional needs to be debunked at all costs, because failure to do so would only perpetuate mediocrity, economic stagnancy, political apathy, and uncreativity among the citizenry.
For math-anxious or mathophobic folks, mathematics is more terrifying than being attacked by an army of vampires, werewolves, and zombies. For the health-conscious, Covid-19 is a thousand times deadlier than Halloween and Donald J. Trump combined. And for those on the far-left of the political spectrum, Trumpvirus is a googol times more lethal than the product of the coronavirus and Halloween. So, it looks like it depends what really matters to you to rationalize which is more frightening: Halloween, Covid-19, or Trump-45.
For conservatives or evangelicals, who recognize the dangers posed by the dark spiritual forces, Halloween is a festival of the devil, because ghosts or evil spirits are real and dangerous. How do math educators navigate through the occultic maze to leverage on a spookacular festival to promote numeracy and creative problem solving?
When Halloween is a multi-million-dollar fear-and-fun business in secular societies like China, Japan, and Singapore, math educators regardless of their religious affiliations have to recognize that Halloween is here to stay.Â
Yellow Halloween
When Asians too feel like celebrating a Western fright-wear festival like Halloween—the spooky business worth millions of dollars is too good to give it a miss.
The yellow Halloween provides an opportunity for rich Chinese and Japanese participants to show off their creative elaborate costumes, bringing much joy to organizers and dozens of tailors cashing in on the event.
by MathPlus November 03, 2016
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Yellow+Halloween
Let's look at a sample of Halloween math questions.
1. A Horror Movie
Thou shalt not dabble in numerology!
The screening of Covid-19 v. Trump-45 ended at 1:19 AM. If the horror movie lasted for 1 hour 31 minutes, what time did it start?
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A poster outside a Singapore bookstore
2. The Ghostly Time
What is the acute angle measure between the hands of a clock at 10:31 p.m. on Halloween?
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3. Horror-scope & Bat-man
#PumpkinSpice from Edel Rodriguez (@edelstudio on 19/10/17)
Today is Friday, and Trump’s numerologist tells him that he will have to drink the blood of a bat 666 days from today to continue to lead a “normal life” after he leaves the White House. What day of the week is Donald expected to do that task?
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4. TrumpMath, Anyone?
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5. A Grave Calculation
Not all sins or bad habits are treated equal!
Assuming that most people would live up to three scores and ten years, how long will it take before the whole world is covered in gravestones?
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6. Operation Vampire
The Power of the Cross
If a vampire were to feed once a day and turn each of his victims into a vampire, show that the entire human population of the planet would become vampires in just over a month.
The Ghost Month and Halloween
Long before the East imported Halloween from the West, superstitious Asians have been celebrating their one-month-long version of Halloween, known as the “Ghost (or Seventh) Month”—a far more scarier festival than a mere evening of horror fun.
My hypothesis is: Halloween is no more than one-seventh as frightening as the Ghost Month, a festival celebrated in many parts of Asia every August or September, depending when those spiritual vagabonds from hell decided to descend on earth.
The coronavirus pandemic and the Seventh Month provide math teachers with new math terms to coin, and allow them to pose a number of deadly guesstimation problems. Below are a few of these Covid-math terms. Â
On August 8, 2020, @SingaporeLite tweeted the following:
Covid-đź‘ż
Corona Math: What are the odds that hungry ghosts from Hell who’d roam Earth during the Ghost or Seventh Month—Aug 19–Sep 16—are corona-proof? Besides instilling fear on superstitious folks, aren’t they also a source of infection? todayonline.com/node/8269421 #Singapore #Covid-19 đź‘żđź¦
On July 1, 2020, @SakamotoMath tweeted the following picture and text.
Happy Math-O-Ween! from @MrHonner
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Corona Math: Given that the coronavirus is empowered to infect both earthlings and celestial beings, guesstimate the no. of infections among the fallen angels that colluded with Lucifer to challenge the Throne of God in the heavenlies. #Covid-19 #heaven #hell #angel #math #humor
Halloween vs. Coronavirus
Which is scarier to you: Halloween or Covid-19? How are you remembering those who would still be around if not because of the coronavirus? Is fake political leadership responsible for their premature departure to the other side of eternity? #Halloween #Covid-19 #death #leadership (@SakamotoMath on 30/10/20)
Covid-19 Goes Green
The coronavirus doesn’t discriminate against believers, nonbelievers, or agnostics—it infects or kills people of all religions or philosophies with the same intensity.
From Paranormal to Trumpnormal Distribution
Q: What do you get when you cross Covid-19 and Statistics?
A: The Trumpnormal distribution.
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A “ghost distribution” from @wilderlab
Political Engineering: Stop flattening and start trumpifying the curve to open up more businesses across the US—more testings and tracings don’t win an election! #statistics #coronavirus #Covid-19 #business #lockdown #distribution #Singapore #math #infection #death #curve #humor
Coronavirus’s Nineteen Names
Just as President Trump has been conferred so many notorious titles, the coronavirus has been given all kinds of racist labels. Â Â
7. Not All Corona Prayers Are the Same!
A Shaolin Buddhist abbot can pray for a Covid-19 patient to be healed in 8 days and a Baptist bishop in 2 days. How long would it take them to get a patient who is twice as sick to fully recover, if both leaders prayed together?
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Selected Answers: 1. 11:48 PM   2. 129.5°   3. Saturday   5. Over a million years   7. 3.2 days
References
Correl, G. (2015). The worrier’s guide to life. Missouri: Andrews McMeel Publishing.
Lloyd, J., Mitchinson, J. & Harkin, J. (2012). 1,227 QI facts to blow your socks off. London: Faber and Faber.
Santos, A. (2009). How many licks? Philadelphia: Running Press.
Even if math educators are politically apathetic or have near-zero interest in world politics, they can’t discount lightly the irrational thoughts, words, and actions of President Trump and Chairman Kim, because the very presence of these two world “leaders” is two too many—the world is far less secure with these two fellows around, especially when at the push of a nuclear button, millions of innocent civilians would be heading to the other side of eternity sooner than later.
Being neither a mathematician nor a politician, I’d be the most unqualified “math educator” to hypothesize how numerate or “logical” or rational these two disruptive politicians are. However, my educational hypothesis about math education in both North Korea and the US is that North Korea Math is probably less inch-deep-mile-wide than US Math.
On January 2, 2013, I tweeted in tongue-in-cheek the following:
If North Korea were to take part in TIMSS, would it be a surprise if its K–12 #math students outperform their counterparts in the US? #TIMSS
If we factor in the educational budget of each participating country in TIMSS and their local teachers’ limited resources, a politically incorrect ranking would probably look as follows:
There are no ranking errors: Singapore isn’t in the top ten (with or without private tuition).
The Rocket Man and the Mentally Deranged US Dotard
Which “political unthinking” is more dangerous: “Think like Kim” or “Think like Trump”? Who is a more unpredictable or deadly bully? Is “Fatty Kim the Third“—a derogatory term for the well-fed dictator whose own people are starving in the millions—a mere toothless bully vis-Ă -vis his American counterpart?
Having zero mercy for your political foes, by torturing them and their family members; and poisoning, hanging, or murdering your siblings and relatives, who you suspect are against you.
Or, tweeting and taunting illegal immigrants, radical Islamists, and the LGBT community, which tends to trigger symptoms of insomnia, irrational fear, anxiety, depression, and trauma—the so-called Trump Stress Disorder (TSD)—which unconfirmed reports suggest that they’re more likely to die sooner of heart attack, or to be victims of racial or ethnic persecution.
Kim’s Digital Murder
Below is a quick-and-dirty e-card I tweeted on August 5, 2018 on dictator-murderer Kim, who had his army of hackers or digital terrorists use Photoshop to “digitally murder” his uncle.
If Kim Jong-Un were a radical Muslim-convert, North Korea could become ISIS’s new HQ! #politics #war some.ly/dCh7Y7b
Mathematical Intercourse between Trump and Kim
Another half-baked mathematical e-card I made and tweeted during the Trump-Kim tĂŞte-Ă -tĂŞte in Singapore is the following:
Trump claimed that he and Kim “fell in love” after exchanging letters—it sounds like two egomaniacs trying to outwit each other with their insincere sweet words, by stroking each other’s fragile ego.
Trump-Putin, Trump-Xi, Trump-Sisi, Trump-Erdogan, and now Trump-Kim. It appears that dictators do attract each other! A political hypothesis math educators pursuing a PhD in math education might wish to test is: Dictatorship is quadratic!
From Dictator Putin to Emperor Xi to soon-to-be Pharaoh Sisi, Tweeter-in-Chief or Pinocchio-in-Chief Trump, all these power-hungry men have no limits to controlling more yes-men and yes-women, while expecting blind obedience—those who don’t toe the line are likely to be fired prematurely.
In Trump & Kim We Trust
The Symbolic Trump-Kim Meeting in Singapore
Last June, the Singapore government forked out a wallet-unfriendly $20 million to hold the symbolic meeting between President Trump and Chairman Kim.
A Political Math exercise I tweeted then was: Guesstimate how much on average each taxpayer in Singapore “contributed” to footing the $20 million bill for the Trump-Kim meeting. bit.ly/2sVT6jG
Fire and Fury on Kim and His Gang of Killers
@juche_school1
Unlike his dictatorial and murderous grandfather and father who had longed to meeting a US President while they’re still alive, Kim Jong-un is the luckiest of the unholy trinity in finding a “good friend” in Donald Trump.
Political pundits think that North Korea needs more than trade sanctions for its nuclear and missile programs and the threat they pose to the world. A regime change to deliver North Koreans from the tyranny of the Kim dynasty ought to be in the political pipeline.
Unlike Vietnam which tries to threaten Trump and Kim impersonators to stop their “mocking acts,” it’s rather surprising that Singapore didn’t ban these pseudo-tyrants from walking around in town to have some political fun with both locals and tourists.
Abel & Cain 4.0
Thou shalt not kill thy brother.
On the right is an e-card I wrote and tweeted around the time when Kim Jong Un wanted so badly to exterminate his half-brother, Kim Jong Nam.
And below is an approved entry I contributed on “Kim Jong-un and Kim Jong-nam,” which could no longer be publicly accessed online:
Maybe Kim’s hackers felt that the days of its publication should be numbered.
Obama vs. Kim
Unlike a dozen-odd mean tweets on Trump and Kim, any entries on Obama and Kim were in short supply. One I tweeted about them in 2014 in the aftermath of a racist comment on President Obama is the following:
Below are some politically incorrect “political math” questions that teachers could creatively tweak to pitch to their oft-politically challenged students, by conveying the message that math and politics do mix.
1. Parallelism between Two Irrational Personalities
List a dozen parallels between President Trump and Chairman Kim.
For example, Trump and Kim each have been conferred with high-sounding titles for their “contributions” to mankind.
Please call me “Dr. President Trump.”
2. Modeling with Trump and Kim
(a) Trump’s Tweets—Firing by Twitter
Model President Trump’s tweets, which provide a rich source of comedy, into a little juicy formula, which would predict his tweet-before-you-think posts in coming years (assuming that he would still be allowed to tweet behind bars should he be convicted for some political or business collusion with foreign powers).
(b) Kim’s Murders—Murder by Numbers
Formulate a “wicked algorithm” that would guesstimate the number of political critics or foes the Kim dynasty had ordered to be imprisoned, tortured, or killed every year since the Korean War.
3. [Fake] Nobel Prize Winners
What are the odds that the Tweeter-in-Chief and the Murderer-in-Chief might share the coveted the Nobel Peace Prize, if their peaceful actions are perceived to help avert World War III, which could irrationally or maniacally be triggered by pressing their nuclear button?
If someone like Yassir Arafat, who supported terrorism against Israel, could win a Nobel Prize, it’s not far-fetched that both Trump and Kim might be “honored” for fakely bringing world peace to an already-violent world, made insecure by radical Islamists.
4. Political Math
Below are some politico-mathematica questions I posted in recent months.
(a) Political Math: Guesstimate how many false or misleading claims Donald Trump will make by the time he leaves the White House in 2020 (or earlier if he is impeached and imprisoned)—7546 white lies in 700 days. #Singapore #math #politics #estimation #humor (@MathPlus on 30/12/18)
(b) Political Math: Which event has the higher odds of ever happening: Donald Trump winning the Nobel Peace Prize or being canonized as “Saint Trump”? If Arafat can win it, so can Trump! bit.ly/2IwDuP1 #Vatican #peace #sainthood #North-Korea #Singapore #math #miracle #humor (@MathPlus on 18/2/19)
(c) Political Math: What are the odds that if we had had President Hillary Clinton instead of President Donald Trump, she too would have fired the ex-FBI director James Comey, and that her opponents would now be calling for her impeachment and prosecution? #politics #math #hypocrisy (@MathPlus on 3/1/19)
How Trump Does Calculus
(d) Political Math: What are the odds that President Trump would not seek re-election in November 2020 in the aftermath of his impeachment by the House for colluding with Putin and gang? #statistics #SingaporeMath #math #odds #collusion #election #politics #Trump #Putin #humor (@MathPlus on 30/11/18)
5. Murderous Math
Here are some deadly math toughies that may not be apt for politically or religiously immature souls. Caution: Arm yourself, if need be, if you feel that you may be a victim of some form of “mathematical rebellion” from your hostile audience, who may be on a different political or spiritual wavelength as you.
(a) Murderous Singapore Math: What are the odds that there would be a coup in North Korea when Dictator Kim traveled to Hanoi for another symbolic meeting with President Trump? Is China, Iran, Syria, Russia, or Venezuela keen to take him?
Murderous Zeros: If filthy rich Saudis can buy a morally bankrupt fellow like Donald Trump to keep his silence, guesstimate how many “loyal zeros” he is worth to his murderers. #Khashoggi #MBS #murder #guesstimation #math (@Zero_Math on 21/11/18)
Murderous Math: A World Without North Korea—What are the chances that in the aftermath of a North Korean nuclear attack on the US, the Kim dynasty would cease to exist (as the US and allies retaliate to wipe out North Korea from the map)? #war #North-Korea #apocalypse #math (@Zero_Math on 6/12/18)
6. Food & Dog Diplomacy
(a) Singapore Math: What are the chances that North Korea might have a McDonald franchise before having a US embassy? #McKim #humor (@MathPlus on 15/8/17)
McKim was approved on July 13, 2017, and had since been probably “hijacked” by the hackers of the guardian deity of planet Earth.
(b) Dog Diplomacy: Chinese Communists give pandas; North Korean Communists give dogs. bbc.co.uk/news/world-asi… #politics #North-Korea #Communism (@MathPlus on 26/11/18)
(c) Faith in god Kim
Kim’s likely promise to Trump: “I want to denuclearize”—as the sanctions hurt and my dynasty must prevail. But like China, Iran, and Russia, where lying and cheating are in their DNA, can the world trust North Korea & the Kim dynasty? #Singapore #politics (@Zero_Math on 10/6/18)
God Has the Final Say in Trump’s Destiny—Not Men or CNN
Let me end on a positive note on how I re-christened or re-defined “President Trump” on 9/11, the date when he’s miraculously elected in 2016.
How God used an ungodly man to effect political change.
Bibliography & References
Monti, R. A. (2018). Donald Trump in 100 facts. UK: Amberley Publishing.
Pater, R. (2016). The politics of design. Amsterdam: BIS Publishers.
A Creative & Disruptive Math Title Coming Your Way*
*Agents keen to represent publishers confident enough to sell an obscene number of If Trump Were Your Math Teachercould contact K C Yan at his e-mail coordinates. A trumpillion thanks!
Thousands of students around the world celebrate Pi Day today, but local math students in Singapore can only dream of being part of this annual mathematical event. Singapore math students, teachers, and parents don’t (and can’t) celebrate Pi Day, as long as they officially follow the British style of writing their dates (DD/MM/YY).
What makes matters worse is that this year, Pi Day falls on the first day of the one-week school break, which makes it almost impossible for hardcore math teachers, who want to buck the calendrical trend, to get their students excited about the properties and beauties of the number Pi.
Until Singapore switches to the American style of writing dates (MM/DD/YY), which may not happen, at least during my lifetime, however, this shouldn’t prevent us from evangelizing the gospel of Pi among the local student population.
Here are seven e-gifts of the holy Pi, which I started musing about 314 minutes ago on this Pi Day.
Vintage Christmas—Just like Baby Jesus two millennia ago!
Christmas is a golden and joyful opportunity for number enthusiasts and math geeks to sharpen their creative mathematical problem-solving skills.
Here are 12 CHRISTmaths cookies that may help you shake your brain a little bit in the midst of Christmas festivities.
Warning: Refrain from forwarding this post to relatives or friends living in countries, which are intolerant of Christmas and Christianity, such as Brunei, Saudi Arabia, and Somalia, as it’s haram for “infidels” to take part in any kind of Christmas celebrations. And I assume that includes reading any on-line materials deemed un-Islamic or un-Mohammedan, which might lead believers astray from the faith.
1. Unlucky Turkeys
Estimate the number of turkeys that make their way to the supermarkets every year.
2. A Xmas Candy
Mary wanted to buy a candy that costs 25 cents. A dated vending machine would take one-cent, five-cent, and ten-cent coins in any combination. How many different ways can she use the coins to pay for the candy?
Remember to scan your Christmas item!
3. The Dimensions of a Cross
A square of side 25 cm has four of its corners cut off to form a cross. What is the perimeter of the cross?
4. The Number of Crossings
Two lines can cross one time, three lines three times, four lines six times, and five lines ten times. If there are 25 lines, what would be the maximum number of crossings be?
5. An Eco-Xmas
If all instances of the word “CHRISTMAS” were replaced with “XMAS,” how much ink and paper (or Xmas trees) could you save every year? How much money could be channelled back to feeding the poor and the hungry during the festive season?
In an age of Xmas e-cards and video cards, how many Christmas greetings cards are still being sent worldwide? How many trees are being saved every festive season?
(a) Without a calculator, how would you verify whether the number 25! has precisely 25 digits or not.
(b) Which positive integers n (other than the trivial case n = 1) for which n! has exactly n digits?
GST (or VAT) with no thanks to Father Xmas
8. Xmas Trees
Guesstimate how big a forest would 25 million Christmas trees occupy.
9. Folding papers
Fold a single piece of paper perfectly in half, from left to right. How many creases will there be after the 25th fold, when you continue folding so that all the rectangles are folded into two halves each time?
10. Pre-Xmas Tax
Imagine Singapore were to implement a pre-Christmas tax on all kinds of Christmas marketing before the first week of December. Estimate how many extra million dollars would the Income Tax department collect every festive season.
Math educators, especially stressed [often self-inflicted] local teachers in Singapore, are always on the look-out for something funny or humorous to spice up their oft-boring math lessons. At least, this is the general feeling I get when I meet up with fellow teachers, who seem to be short of fertile resources; however, most are dead serious to do whatever it takes to make their teaching lessons fun and memorable.
It’s often said that local Singapore math teachers are the world’s most hardworking (and arguably the world’s “most qualified” as well)—apparently, they teach the most number of hours, as compared with their peers in other countries—but for the majority of them, their drill-and-kill lessons are boring like a piece of wood. It’s as if the part of their brain responsible for creativity and fun had long been atrophied. A large number of them look like their enthusiasm for the subject have extinguished decades ago, and teaching math until their last paycheck seems like a decent job to paying the mortgages and to pampering themselves with one or two dear overseas trips every other year with their loved ones.
Indeed, Singapore math has never been known to be interesting, fun, or creative, at least this is the canned perception of thousands of local math teachers and tutors—they just want to over-prepare their students to be exam-smart and to score well. The task of educating their students to love or appreciate the beauty and power of the subject is often relegated to outsiders (enrichment and olympiad math trainers), who supposedly have more time to enrich their students with their extra-mathematical activities.
A prisoner of war in World War II, Sidney Harris is one of the few artists who seems to have got a good grasp of math and science. While school math may not be funny, math needn’t be serious for the rest of us, who may not tell the difference between mathematical writing and mathematics writing, or between ratio and proportion. Let Sidney Harris show you why a lot of things about serious math are dead funny. Mathematicians tend to take themselves very seriously, which is itself a funny thing, but S. Harris shows us through his cartoons how these symbol-minded men and women are a funny awful lot.
Angel: “I’m beginning to understand eternity, but infinity is still beyond me.”
Mathematical humor is a serious (and dangerous) business, which few want to invest their time in, because it often requires an indecent number of man- or woman-hours to put their grey matter to work in order to produce something even half-decently original or creative. The choice is yours: mediocrity or creativity?
Humorously and irreverently yours
References
Adams, D. S. (2014). Lab math. New York: Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press.
Harris, S. (1970). What’s so funny about science? Los Altos, Ca.: Wm. Kaufmann, Inc.
Check out an inexpensive (but risky) way to make a Singapore math lesson less boring: The Use of Humor in Mathematics. The author would be glad to visit local schools and tuition centers to conduct in-service three-hour math courses for fellow primary and secondary math teachers, who long to bring some humor to their everyday mathematical classrooms—as part of their annual 100 hours professional upgrading. Please use his e-mail coordinates on the Contact page.
Based on the average number of questions contained in an assessment (or supplementary) math book these days, it can be estimated that most students in Singapore would have solved some seven thousand math questions by the time they had graduated from elementary school. Indeed, an awful lot, to say the least.
I try to understand why local math writers feel that they’ve to provide such an unhealthy number of these drill-and-kill questions or routines for students to practice. Surely, their publishers are behind this “numerical obscenity,” arguing that many kiasu parents would feel that they’re buying a value-for-money book. Imagine the emotional or psychological harm it could do to a child who barely has any interest in the subject.
Even for those with a fluency with numbers, wouldn’t a thousand (or even half of that number) questions bore them to death? Many would end up getting a distorted picture of what elementary math is all about—imitate-practice-imitate more-practice more.
Imagine that’s just Book 1A for grade one! How many more drills are there for Book 1B?
The Junk Food of Singapore’s Math Education
Drill-and-kill math questions are like the junk food of math education. Every now and then, we all visit these fast food outlets, but to grow up on a diet that consists mainly of burgers, French flies, and Coke for most days of the week, that can only be a good recipe for unavoidable obesity and all sorts of preventable diseases that would pop up sooner than later. Likewise, over-exposing students to these math drills would only produce an army of drill-and-kill specialists, who wouldn’t be able to think critically and creatively in mathematics—and later in life.
The Baby [Math] Gift for Singapore’s Jubilee
For Singapore’s Golden Jubilee, when the nation celebrates its 50th year of independence in 2015, other than giving items like a special medallion, a multi-functional shawl, and a set of baby clothes, one of the suggested gifts by the mathematical brethren to be given to Singaporean babies born next year should be a check amounting to not less than a thousand bucks. This would help defray the average cost incurred by parents who would need to buy those elementary math supplementary titles during the child’s formative years—it’s a rite of passage for every child studying in a Singapore government school to expose himself or herself to these drill-and-kill questions. Even if parents are opposed to these math drills, school teachers or tutors might still recommend the child to buy one!
It looks like an average grade 4 child has to solve not less than a thousand odd questions before he or she could graduate to grade 5.
Drill-and-Kill Specialists or Innumerates
Of course, it’s better to produce tens of thousands of drill-and-kill specialists than an army of innumerates. In the short term, this raises the self-esteem of the children, as they feel that they can solve most of these routine questions, by parroting the solutions of the worked examples. We all learn by imitation, but at least the questions need to slowly move from routine to non-routine. We can’t afford to have hundreds of questions that test the same skills or sub-skills almost without end. We need a balanced percent of drills, non-drills, and challenging questions—not a disproportionate unhealthy number of drill-and-kill questions, which would only affect our long-term mathematical health.
Interestingly, many average students find books like the above far more useful than their oft-boring school textbooks and workbooks.
The Good Part of Drill-and-Kill
One good thing about these wallet-friendly drill-and-kill math titles is that they can easily replace a lousy or lazy math teacher, or even a mathophobic parent. After all, we can’t expect too much from a mathematical diet that could help sustain (or even strengthen) us for a while. At best, they’re like Kumon Math, which subscribes to the philosophy that more practice and more drill could eventually help the child to become self-motivated, and to raise his or her self-esteem in the short term.
Some of these reprinted or rehashed “math drills” titles cost on average less than one cent per question—no doubt, many [gullible?] parents think or feel that they’re getting a pretty good deal from buying these wallet-friendly books—cheap and “good”!
Are You a Disciple of Drill-and-Kill?
If mathematical proficiency is credited to be achieved through practice and more practice, would you buy a few of these math practice titles for your child? Or, as a teacher or tutor, would you recommend one for your student or tutee? Don’t you think that this is a case of “more is less”? Could the child end up being mathematically undernourished when it comes to creative problem solving and higher-order thinking? Or maybe the child could even be numerically constipated by an overdose of these drill-and-kill questions?
Caution: The above title may be hazardous to your long-term mathematical health—it could atrophy your higher-order, creative, and critical thinking skills in mathematics!
In my formative years, I don’t recall any elementary school teachers sharing some mathematical puns with us. I suppose that the arithmetic of yesteryear was often taught in the most uninteresting way by many who probably didn’t look forward to teaching it to a bunch of noisy kids.
Recently, while reading Stewart Francis’s Pun direction: Over 500 of his greatest gags…and four crap ones!, I came across a number of numerical puns that might even be appreciated by some nerdy seven-year-olds. Stewart Francis is considered to be the best Canadian comedian from Southern Ontario. Here are two dozen odd math-related puns I’ve stolen from his punny book. Hope you enjoy them!
The number of twins being born has doubled.
They also stole my calculator,
which doesn’t add up.
Four out of ten people are used in surveys. Six are not.
Crime in lifts is on the rise.
“QED Gravestone Small Poster” www.cafepress.com
I recently overcame my fear of calculators.
It was a twelve-step program.
Women are attracted to foreign men. I’ve heard that at least uno, dos, tres times.
All seventeen of my doctors say I have an addictive personality.
There’s a slim chance my sister’s anorexic.
Truthfully, we met at a chess match, where she made the first move.
Is my wife dissatisfied with my body? A tiny part of me says yes.
I read that ten out of two people are dyslexic.
From: wherethepunis.com
They now have a website for stutterers, it’s wwwdotwwwdotwwwdotwwwdotdotdot.
I have mixed race parents, my father prefers the 100 metres.
I’m the youngest of three, my parents are both older.
© Sidney Harris There is nothing new under the mathematical sun! 
