Sarah Dilys Maths Tutor - Prestatyn, North Wales, UK

Prynhawn da pawb / Good afternoon all,

Today was the start of the new academic year here in the UK. I hope that it was a positive experience for all learners, and school staff too!

What is the link between maths and conspiracy theories? This video by Jeff Galak of Data Demystified demonstrates.

As the video explains, probability shows that a conspiracy theory that is actually true is highly likely to be found out. This is because it is highly likely that those involved in the conspiracy speak out. An example of when this has occurred was the case of the Tuskegee Experiments, which were found to be true when someone involved in them spoke out.

The probability of a true conspiracy theory being found out increases as the number of people involved increases, and as time goes on. This makes it highly improbable that a true conspiracy theory is kept hidden by those involved. Therefore, a conspiracy theory in which no one involved has spoken out is highly unlikely to be true, with the likelihood decreasing still further as time goes on.

This video refers to the academic paper “On the Viability of Conspiratorial Beliefs”. I have included the link to this paper in the comments section. The paper's abstract states that “historical examples of exposed conspiracies do exist and it may be difficult for people to differentiate between reasonable and dubious assertions. In this work, we establish a simple mathematical model for conspiracies involving multiple actors with time, which yields failure probability for any given conspiracy.”

If you have time to watch the video and/or read the paper I would highly recommend doing so.

Enjoy!
Sarah 🙂

Conspiracy Theories Debunked with Math There are countless conspiracy theories circulating around social media. Just look for a few minutes and you’ll hear that 9/11 was actually perpetrated by th...

The Amos Bursary is for pupils who've just finished year 11, that are British and of African and/or Caribbean heritage, and attended a state school/academy/college in London or the West Midlands.

Please click on the link for more details and full eligibility criteria.

Good luck!
Sarah

Become an Amos Student - The Amos Bursary Become an Amos Student We are changing the narrative and normalising success Think you might want to join us? Applications Open 21 August 2025 – Check out the information below […]

Prynhawn da pawb / good afternoon all,

This is a great article, explaining how Pythagoras Theorem is used to create right angles. This goes as far back as the building of the pyramids in ancient Egypt.

From "A World of Women in STEM".

Ancient Mathematics: Triangles in Egypt Have you ever wondered what the very first math equations looked like? Or how ancient civilizations did things like measure distances, count numbers, and compute algebra without modern tools like rulers and calculators? When you see pictures of the Egyptian pyramids--or maybe you’ve even seen them...

Bore da pawb / good morning all!

Yesterday I returned from my study tour in Egypt. I saw the pyramids, fulfilling a lifelong ambition of mine.

The geometry used by the Nubian people in building the pyramids and other structures was very advanced. I'm going to look into it more and post about it soon. In the meantime, here's a few photos to pique your interest 🙂

Hello all,

My Master's Degree certificate has finally come through!

For anyone interested in my private tuition, I'm only doing online tuition (e.g. using Skype) and it costs £25 per hour. I'm hoping to have some space in about a fortnight's time.

Thanks,
Sarah

Good afternoon everyone / Prynhawn da pawb 🙂

I hope that everyone is settling well into their new school years.

I've had a few queries about tuition and I'm looking forward to starting sessions with some new learners soon.

Here in Wales we've had a big change to our roads recently. The majority of roads that were a maximum speed of 30mph have now been reduced to a maximum speed of 20mph. I won't get into the politics of this (suffice to say that most people are unhappy, especially on the main roads!) but I thought it would be a good time to discuss the concept of speed and how we measure it.

Speed is not a "simple" measure. It cannot be measured using a tool. Simple measures are things like length, that can be measured with a ruler, and time, that can be measured with a clock.

Speed is a "compound" measure that has to be calculated from two simple measures. It is the distance travelled divided by the time taken to travel that distance:

speed = distance / time

(I use "/" to denote division.)

To be completely accurate, this calculation gives us the "average speed", because it doesn't take into account speeding up (acceleration) or slowing down (deceleration or negative acceleration) but assumes that the speed remains the same (is constant) for the whole journey.

In GCSE questions you may be given two measures and asked to calculate the third one. We can rearrange the formula above to find the two other formulas that we need:

distance = speed x time

time = distance / speed

You can usually remember the 3 formulas by memorising the triangle posted below (credit to thirdstagelearning.com). The same triangle is shown 3 times to demonstrate how to get the 3 formulas from it.

Thanks for reading,
Sarah