Tuesday, December 27, 2016

2016 gets a bad rap!

2016 is sitting slouched in its chair like a tired and stroppy Yr 11 student.  “I know that Brexit and Trump were my fault, but you can’t blame me for David Bowie or Prince.  Or George Michael.”  And then 2016 shouts: “Everyone’s got it in for me.”

For example:

Is it fair to have a go at 2016? 

The people whose deaths have made it into the national or international media all have one thing in common: they are famous.  It does feel as if there were more deaths of famous people during 2016 than in previous years, so what is going on?  Well maybe there are just more famous people who are getting old round about now.

Some assumptions:

  • We have noted the deaths of celebrities
  • The median age nowadays is about 75
  • People become famous in their mid-twenties
Using these assumptions, many of the celebrities will have come to prominence in the mid-1960s.  Let’s compare 1966 with 1956.

How can we find how many famous people there were in each year?  One proxy we can use is the number of movies that were released.










According to the Internet Movie Database, there were 10,460 movies released during 1956.  In 1966 there were 18,053.

This is a massive increase, presumably fuelled by the rise of the teenager, greater disposable income, a rise in population.  This will have required an increase in the number of movies, and also more actors and therefore more celebrities. 

If this has happened in movies, then presumably it also happened in popular music and on TV too.  Now some of the celebrities who have died during 2016 were not active during the 1960s, but many of them were and the rise in population after the second world war and the increase of celebrity since the 1960s are likely to have affected this.

And things are just going to get worse.  The number of celebrities in the world is increasing at a massive rate.  Think of the number of reality-TV show celebrities we see and read about each year.  In 50-odd years time, when the X-factor/Bake-off/Apprentice/Big Brother/etc contestants start to get old, 2016 will look like a quieter, more innocent time.

Maybe the reason we have seen so many more celebrity deaths in 2016 is that there are more celebrities nowadays and more of those celebrities are getting older.

So let’s stop blaming 2016; it really isn’t its fault (but hope you won’t be teaching his younger brother, 2017).

Refs:


Saturday, December 10, 2016

Tokyo 2020 Logo

Olympic logos are often controversial. Lots of people didn’t like the London 2012 logo, for example. I thought the Rio 2016 one was great, though.


The controversy over the Tokyo 2020 logo was originally about plagiarism. The first logo that was chosen for the Olympics was subsequently withdrawn after it was found to be rather similar to that of the Théâtre de Liège. 

This is the new logo:


I find it a little unsettling. 

I think I have now worked out why. It feels as if it ought to have reflection symmetry. I think I start looking at the top of the logo, where my brain tells me it is symmetrical (roughly). 


As you go down the image this symmetry breaks down, and that is what makes it slightly uncomfortable to look at. 

There is, however, some symmetry in the logo. Can pupils spot it? 

It has rotational symmetry order 3. The red dots show three related points. 



Even though I now know about the symmetry I still find the Olympic logo ‘swims’ in front of my eyes. 

The Paralympic logo though; that works far better for me: 

Aah - nice to have reflection symmetry!

Sources: