Cosmic Horizons

So, my plans for my blog through 2017 have not quite gone to plan, but things have been horrendously busy, and it seems like the rest of the year is likely to continue this way. But I did get a chance to do some recreational mathematics, spurred on my a story in the news. It's to do with a problem presented at the  2017 Raytheon MATHCOUNTS® National Competition  and reported in the  New York Times.  Here's the question as presented in the press: Kudos to 13 year old Texan, Luke Robitialle, who got this right. With a little thought, you should be able to realise that the answer is 25. For any particular chick, there are four potential out comes, each with equal probability. Either the chick is pecked from the left pecked from the right pecked from left and right not pecked at all Only one of these options results in the chick being unpecked, and so the expected number of chicks unpecked in a circle of 100 is one quarter of this number, or 25. AB...

Proton: a life story  by Geraint F. Lewis 10 35 years: I’ve lived a long and eventful life, but I know that death is almost upon me. Around me, my kind are slowly melting into the darkness that is now the universe, and my time will eventually come. I’ve lived a long and eventful life… 10 -43 seconds: A time of unbelievable light, unbelievable heat! I don’t remember the time before I was born, but I was there, disembodied, ethereal, part of the swirling, roaring fires of the universe coming in to being. But the universe cooled. From the featureless inferno, its character crystalized into a seething sea of particles and forces. Electrons and quarks tore about, smashing and crashing into photons and neutrinos. The universe continued to cool. 1 second: The intensity of the heat steadily died away, and I was born. In truth, there was no precise moment of my birth, but as the universe cooled my innards, free quarks, bound together, and I was suddenly there!...