The day before, we read that a female Burmese python weighting 98 kg and nearly 5 m was caught in Florida. She’s the largest snake ever found in that state before her death, pregnant with an amazing 122 eggs; if stretched vertically, she’d be as tall as a giraffe.

In Florida, where now lives the Viper in Chief after being ousted from the White House, who’s since preoccupied himself with terrorizing those who refuse to propagate his lasagna of lies, pythons have become pests due to irresponsible pet owners of yesteryears releasing or allowing pet pythons to escape in the wild.

With no major predators, Florida’s subtropical climate has provided serpents and snakes a conducive breeding ground for them to multiply, often outcompeting native species. Who knows? Alien vipers might eventually outnumber local pythons, if left on their own to populate the land.

Recently, some human vipers mounted a “mathematical insurrection” against textbook publishers for allegedly promoting “woke math” to K–12 students. And a rising number of foreign pythons are set to keep Florida’s annual “Python Challenge” alive—this year, the event runs from August 5–14 and is expected to lure around 500+ python hunters from 25 different states.

🐍🔢: Math with Pythons & Pithons

Like math questions on vampires and zombies, those on pythons (and pithons) are no less frightening or exciting to problem solvers. Below are two examples:

It is estimated that the female Burmese python, which was caught after Floridian researchers used a male “scout” to find her, was up to 20 years old. In human years, would she be as old as the Viper in Chief?

Python Pies or Pizzas: In 2021, the winner of the “Python Challenge” captured 223 pythons, while the longest snake was 15 feet long. Imagine if this year’s captured foreign pythons were ethically killed and exotically used to make pies or pizzas, how many pieces of either one could be made by the chefs at Mar-a-Lago for the “Florida Python Food Festival”?

© Yan Kow Cheong, June 25, 2022