Halley worked out exactly when his comet would return. He was 16 years dead when it showed up, right on time. #MathsDidThat #maths #space #astronomy #halleyscomet

Every smooth surface in a Pixar film is a formula from 1978 — written by the guy who ended up running the studio. #MathsDidThat #maths #pixar #animation #linearalgebra

A casino doesn't gamble. Every game has a fixed edge, and over millions of bets a small edge becomes a certainty. You're playing luck. They're playing an average. #MathsDidThat #maths #probability #casino #gambling

Over 2,000 years ago a librarian measured the size of the entire planet using a stick, a shadow, and one angle. He got within a few percent. #MathsDidThat #maths #history #geometry #earth

Mars is so far away that by the time NASA saw the rover start landing, it was already down — or dead — seven minutes earlier. So it had to land itself. #MathsDidThat #maths #space #mars #nasa

Real-world numbers start with a 1 about 30% of the time, not 11%. Fake numbers don't. That's how auditors catch fraud. #MathsDidThat #maths #benfordslaw #fraud #statistics

There are insects that stay underground for exactly 13 or 17 years, then all come out at once. Not 12, not 16. The best explanation is prime numbers. #MathsDidThat #maths #primenumbers #cicadas #nature

A planet was discovered by maths alone. Someone worked out where it had to be, mailed the coordinates, and it was there that same night. #MathsDidThat #maths #howitworks #stem #space

It's not that the computers aren't good enough. There's a mathematical wall past about ten days, and no amount of computing power gets through it. #MathsDidThat #maths #howitworks #stem #weather

Shazam has never actually heard a song. It turns the sound into a picture, throws away almost all of it, and matches what's left. #MathsDidThat #maths #howitworks #stem #technology

Look at a rocket. Almost all of it is fuel — only about 4% reaches orbit. One equation from 1903 explains why there's no way around it. #MathsDidThat #maths #howitworks #stem #technology

The Nazi war code had more settings than you can say out loud. It got broken not by trying them, but by noticing one thing the machine could never do. #MathsDidThat #maths #howitworks #stem #technology

A brand new bridge opened in London and started swaying so badly they shut it two days later. Nobody was marching. The maths is the same as fireflies flashing in sync. #mathsdidthat #maths #engineering #london #stem

A tired guy on a café terrace in Amsterdam, 1956, waiting for his coffee. Twenty minutes later he'd invented the maths every map app still runs on. #MathsDidThat #maths #algorithms #googlemaps #stem

A scratch wipes out thousands of bits in a row and the music doesn't even skip. The reason is a maths paper written before CDs existed. #MathsDidThat #maths #howitworks #technology #stem

GPS runs on a 100-year-old theory of Einstein's. Turn it off and your map drifts into the next city. #MathsDidThat #maths #gps #relativity #howitworks #stem #space

A 12-megapixel photo should be about 36 MB. The one in your camera roll is 3. The other 33 MB got thrown away, and someone did the maths on exactly what your eyes wouldn't miss.

Maths Did That, episode 1. #MathsDidThat #math #howitworks #jpeg #stem #didyouknow