Circumference

Source: http://www.xkcd.com/1184/

Further comments, from Nicholas Vanserg, “Mathmanship,” The American Scientist, Vol. 46, No. 3 (1958):

In an article published a few years ago, the writer intimated with befitting subtlety that since most concepts of science are relatively simple (once you understand them), any ambitious scientist must, in self-preservation, prevent his colleagues from discovering that his ideas are simple too…

The object of… Mathmanship is to place unsuspected obstacles in the way of the pursuer until he is obliged, by a series of delays and frustrations, to give up the chase and concede his mental inferiority to the author…

[U]se a superscript as a key to a real footnote. The knowledge seeker reads that S is -36.7^{14} calories and thinks, “Gee what a whale of a lot of calories,” until he reads to the bottom of the page, finds footnote 14 and says, “oh.”

Mathematical Christmas gifts

Now that Christmas is over, I can safely share the Christmas gifts that I gave to my family this year thanks to Nausicaa Distribution (https://www.etsy.com/shop/NausicaaDistribution):

Euler’s equation pencil pouch:

Box-and-whisker snowflakes to hang on our Christmas tree:

And, for me, a wonderfully and subtly punny “Confidence and Power” T-shirt.

Thanks to FiveThirtyEight (see http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-fivethirtyeight-2014-holiday-gift-guide/) for pointing me in this direction.

green lineFor the sake of completeness, here are the math-oriented gifts that I received for Christmas: