And the Winner is....

Source: Google Images

Tonight, the $1.5 billion Powerball winner will be announced. As people anxiously await the winning numbers, they hold on to the “someone has to win” mentality. Unfortunately, the odds of winning the largest jackpot in the history of the world? 1: 292,201,338.

According to NBC news these are a few events that are more likely to happen…

1. Becoming a movie star, 1:1 M
2. Becoming the President of the United States, 1:10 M
3. Being drafted into the NBA,1:6.8 M
4. Born with extra fingers or toes, 1:500
5. Being attacked by a shark, 1:11.5 M

Don’t let these dismal odds bring you down! The chances of winning some kind of Powerball prize, even $4, are about 1:32. Not too shabby!

Source: Google Images

If you’re lucky enough to be the winner, your newfound fortune would be reduced to $930 million after taxes. What would you buy with $930,000,000? Here are some options!

With 930 million dollars you could buy…

344 Ferraris – $2.7M                     

344 million cups of coffee – $2.70

Bill Gates's house – 6 times! – $147.5 M

71 private islands in the Bahamas – $13 M

9 Luxury Cruise Ships built for 700 passengers – $100 M

93 million Worldwide Center of Math Digital Textbooks – $9.95

Good luck and hopefully the odds are in your favor!


Sources used: 
http://www.digitaltrends.com/cars/the-top-ten-most-expensive-cars-in-the-world/4/
http://www.islands.com/top-10-private-islands-sale-200k-and?image=9 
http://www.usnews.com/news/blogs/data-mine/2015/09/29/americans-pay-an-average-270-for-coffee-while-tipping-20-percent
http://www.yachtworld.com/boats/Power/Cruise+Ship
http://www.zillow.com/advice-thread/Bill-Gates-House-Worth-135-759-Million-Located-in-Medina-WA-annual-tax-1-013-million/24073
http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/11/28/15510840-11-things-more-likely-to-happen-than-winning-the-powerball-jackpot?lite

Advanced Knowledge Problem of the Week

Happy summer! Check out this week's Advanced Knowledge Problem of the Week!

You can find the solution below.

Math in a Minute

Hello everyone, Jacob here! If you've been following the Center's videos for the past few months, you might have noticed that I like to say a whole lot of things about any given topic, and that makes my videos go on pretty long. So, with me on the way out and the next math co-op coming in soon,  I decided to challenge myself to do the opposite: in this new mini-series, you'll see me tackle some classic but nontrivial problems from all different branches of mathematics, each in a single video whose duration is sixty seconds or less. Keep reading to watch Math in a Minute!

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You can read the way I solved it after the break.

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HyperRogue and hyperbolic geometry

One mathematical field that I find particularly interesting and beautiful is hyperbolic geometry: it's the same as Euclidean geometry, but takes the axiom that for any line and any point outside of that line, there's more than one line passing through that point which doesn't intersect the given line. In the past, hyperbolic geometry has featured heavily in the works of mathematically inclined artists like M.C. Escher.

Recently, over the past few years, independent developer ZenoRogue has created a video game that utilizes hyperbolic geometry, by the name of HyperRogue. The game is in the roguelike genre, but rather than using turn-based game evolution on a square or hexagonal grid, the game is based on the truncated order-7 triangular tiling of the hyperbolic plane, often called the "hyperbolic soccer ball," which is what gives it all sorts of interesting non-Euclidean properties. Keep reading to watch a Center of Math original video of HyperRogue gameplay, along with commentary about how the mathematical properties of hyperbolic space affect the game.