Categorie: Overig
Bitcoin: the 21st century gold
Most of you have probably heard about it in the news lately: the Bitcoin price is reaching new highs, which have never been seen before. This is mainly due to the fact that several financial firms have announced that they will invest their money into bitcoin. Other firms have predicted that the bitcoin price will increase, some saying even that it will reach $146K before the end of 2021. This is quite interesting considering the fact that bitcoin is a relatively new asset, and most people think this is pure speculation. That is not so […]
Christmas with a mathematical touch
At first, you may think that mathematics has nothing to do with Christmas. The only link I could think of was calculating whether you have enough budget to buy that all those present for your family. However, mathematicians will always think of a way to integrate mathematics and thus, also for Christmas. One of the most popular applications of mathematics to Christmas is analyzing the song “Twelve Days of Christmas”. In this song, a surprising mathematical pattern is used to find out how many presents the singer receives during the twelve days of Christmas. Furthermore, […]
Estimated reading time: 3 minuten
A station wagon full of data tapes vs. the internet
“Since we do not have up-to-date information on your order, we do not know whether or not it has arrived.” You or any of your acquaintances have probably received an email containing such a sentence. Due to the combination of the Covid-19 pandemic, Black Friday and Sinterklaas package delivery services had one of its worst weeks of all time. People start to wonder how these services are still so lacking in this modern world. However, never underestimate the power of the courier industry. Sending data Suppose you want to send a humongous amount of […]
Estimated reading time: 4 minuten
Measuring the speed of light
299,792,458 metres per second. That is the speed of light as we concluded ourselves. Even the definition of a metre is based on this. One metre namely is equal to the distance light travels in 1/ 299,792,458 of a second. Even though this sounds like a joke, as it is so straightforward, it is actually true. It shows that we are really sure about the speed at which light travels. However, should we be so sure that this number is correct? The answer should be no, as we actually do not know the “one-way” speed […]
Black Friday
It is almost that time of the year again: Black Friday. The day were most of us spend a lot of money (almost 90% more than usual) on presents for ourselves, friends, and relatives. A day which is well-known for its raging hordes of Black Friday shoppers. We have all seen the extreme videos were usually well-behaved individuals act like animals. The men and woman who run down the escalators at full speed and try to grab whatever they can on their way to the checkout desk. Interestingly, due to COVID-19, this year’s Black Friday […]
Who will conquer the world?
Risk has been one of the most beloved board games since its release more than sixty years ago. With this classic board game, a fun evening with your friends or family can soon turn into an hours-long war where alliances are forged, troops are lost and battles are won. This family game has brought a lot of joy as well as quarrels and has produced many victors over the years. But what exactly is the best way to conquer the world? Is there a way to ensure your victory? In this article I will […]
Estimated reading time: 9 minuten
Embrace the spook
Scratching noises, soft but certainly close and drawing closer. You wake up and listen to them getting louder. Right in front of your bedroom door, the noise stops. The door handle starts to move down and the door is opening. Startled you reach for the light on your nightstand and turn it on. Movement at the doorpost. A hand, black and rotten, as if the owner has been dead for years, pulls back from the doorpost, back into the hallway. You scream. You hear loud stumbling noises in the hallway and the next moment the […]
Estimated reading time: 3 minuten
Do you really need a VPN?
Are you reading this article using a VPN? If so, what made you decide to buy one? If not, did you ever consider getting one? Chances are quite small you have never heard of them, as everywhere you surf, advertisements flood you with the advantages of using a VPN. Many famous youtubers are getting sponsored by VPN companies to inform you about discount opportunities at the start of their videos. They all make claims about how you are unsafe on the internet and how using a VPN will solve these problems and wholly protect your privacy. […]
Estimated reading time: 5 minuten
Do we need medication to cure diseases?
The whole world has been undergoing quite some big changes since the start of the year 2020, all due to the new disease COVID-19. The scientists are in a hurry to find either a preventative vaccine or a curing medicine. However, what if something as harmless as a sugar pill could cure the disease? Now, I’m not saying this would work in this situation, but this kind of treatment has worked for different situations. This mysterious idea is called the placebo effect. What is the placebo effect? The placebo effect is based on the idea […]
Stop the Democracy
The liberal democracy. For long, we have been led (or rather misled) to believe that the liberal democracy is the ideal system of governance. On one hand, it is true that democracies tend to give their subjects great freedom and prosperity. However, on the other hand, decision-making in democracies is negatively affected by emotions and biases. The average individual is politically uninformed, biased, and even incompetent, resulting in irrational decision-making. Perhaps, in our increasingly complex world, we need another system of governance. A system where rational political decisions are made to achieve optimal outcomes. Epistocracy […]
Never lose ‘Rock, Paper, Scissors’ again
We all suffer from it from time to time. You have just had a quite big meal with your friends and the last thing you would like to do is wash the dishes. To decide who will do the terrible job, you play a game of ‘Rock, paper, scissors’. However, how great would it be to never lose the game again? That every time you are at the point of deciding who will do the dirty job, you can have the winning strategy. The rules of the game are very simple. Scissors cut paper. Paper […]
What is true randomness?
The shuffle function on Spotify is an easy way to listen to music without having to pick some numbers. However, once in a while we all seem to recognize patterns in the numbers that we listen to. The shuffle function does not seem to be so random at all, so are these numbers truly randomly picked? This recognition of a sequence is partially caused by the functioning of our brain. It is very easy for the brain to distinguish patterns in seemingly random things like shuffled music or dice roles. Especially when these “processes” are […]