Maths Guru Cracks Christmas Code
Oliver Johnson, Professor of Information Theory at the University of Bristol, made sense of pandemic stats and is now turning his number-crunching genius to Christmas chaos. His debut book Numbercrunch, hitting shelves next year from Heligo Books, reveals how maths can solve life’s biggest puzzles – including festive ones.
Six Ways Maths Makes Christmas Merrier
1. The Trigonometree Trick
Struggled with trigonometry at school? No worries. Decorating your Christmas tree isn’t about triangles – it’s about beating randomness.
“Humans are poor at creating truly random patterns,” says Professor Johnson. “If you hang baubles randomly, about 37% of branches might end up bare, while others get overloaded. Colours cluster too much, ruining the look. The sweet spot is a ‘quasi-random’ strategy – part random, part structured – for a tree that’s easier on the eye.”
2. Wrap It Like Newton
Want to save on wrapping paper? Isaac Newton (born on December 25, no less) and maths genius Colin Maclaurin have you covered. Their work proved the cube is the rectangular box shape with the smallest surface area for a given volume.
“Choose cube-shaped gifts and you’ll use less paper,” advises Johnson. “So the beloved Chocolate Orange is easier to wrap than a flat bar with the same chocolate inside – bonus for Santa’s reindeer fuel!”
3. The 12 Days of Pascal
Ever wondered about the maths behind the “Twelve Days of Christmas”? It’s hidden in Pascal’s Triangle.
“The presents you receive each day follow ‘triangular numbers’ (1, 3, 6, 10…) and the total gifts add up to ‘tetrahedral numbers’ (1, 4, 10, 20…),” explains Johnson. “By day 12, that’s a whopping 364 presents – with geese a-laying and swans a-swimming topping the charts.”
4. The Travelling Santa Problem
Kids marvel at Santa’s globe-trotting speed, but planning his route is a nightmare even for supercomputers. It’s a classic “Travelling Salesman Problem”.
“The most efficient path to visit thousands of stops is insanely hard to calculate,” says Johnson. “Humans solved 85,900 stops in 136 years of computing time! Maybe Santa’s secret weapon is a quantum computer – on top of magical reindeer and elves – helping him nail the ultimate delivery route.”
5. How Bad Are Your Festive Chocolates?
Ever pulled the dreaded least-liked chocolate from the selection box? Maths explains why it feels inevitable.
“If your box has 24 tasty and 6 nasty chocolates, there’s a 20% chance the last one is a dud,” says the professor. “But if people put back the bad chocolates some of the time, that chance can soar to 64%. So beware – your odds get worse the more you fudge the chocolate order.”
6. Stacking Baubles Like a Maths Wizard
Baubles are fragile and space-hogging. How can you store them efficiently?
“The best way is a staggered hexagonal pattern, like oranges in a grocery store,” says Johnson. “It took 400 years to prove this, and recently, the brilliant Maryna Viazovska bagged the Fields Medal for related work in higher dimensions. Impressive trivia for your next Christmas quiz!”
Get Ready to Crunch the Numbers This Christmas
Professor Oliver Johnson’s Numbercrunch drops in March. It’s packed with smart maths hacks to tackle everyday puzzles – festive or not. Fancy making your Christmas a bit more logical and a lot more fun? Pre-order here.
