Wednesday night’s discussion over milkshakes started from a definition of a billabong<\/a> before proceeding to the dubious relationship between π and river lengths<\/a>, before stumping us as we tried to work out, in our heads, the length of one cycle of a sine curve<\/a>.<\/p>\n By my count, this was the fourth time I had ever (ever!<\/b>) wanted to find an integral outside of a maths class, since I first learnt to integrate twenty years ago.<\/p>\n I completely failed to even begin to work out how to do it.<\/p>\n The third time I had the opportunity was in 1994, and it was while helping a friend with her uni assignment. So, it was still uni-related. I had the complete worked out answer there in front of me in the text book, and I still had trouble following it!<\/p>\n In my day, computing was taught as part of a Maths degree, and the Maths department wasn’t going to graduate anyone who couldn’t prove advanced theorems about calculus – no matter how little they cared. The number of hours – nay, the number of weeks or months of my time that I spent learning how to find integrals (at school and at uni) was a complete and utter waste of my precious and oh-so-short life.<\/p>\n I am not being anti-mathematics here. For example, I found Discrete Maths interesting and even enjoyable. I am just protesting that I had to study topics that did not interest me, and I knew at the time I was studying them would never be of use to me.<\/p>\n It was during one of these interminable maths lectures that I realised the solution; the idea that is going to make me my second million. (Once my first million dollar idea finally takes off, so I have time to develop this.) In hindsight, it seems quite obvious.<\/p>\n Every year you pay a premium to the maths insurance company. The amount is based on your job and claim history. If you come across a maths problem you need solved, you simply ring up the company’s call center. It is full of otherwise-unemployable maths postgraduates, waiting for your call. They will solve your maths problem for you!<\/p>\nIntegrals Not Integral to My Life<\/h3>\n
Maths Insurance<\/h3>\n