/podcasts/wbu43.mp3

In this month’s installment of Wrong, But Useful, our special guest co-host is @mathsjem (Jo Morgan in real life) from the indispensable resourceaholic.com.

• We start by talking about resourceaholic.com and how Jo manages to fit such a punishing blog schedule around being a nearly-full-time maths teacher.
• Colin wonders how writing has affected Jo’s teaching practice.
• The number of the podcast is 530, an untouchable number.
• Apparently you peasants who carry money around are excited about the new £1 coin. Jo used to work at the Bank of England and has insights about how statistics can be applied to the circulation of banknotes. We refer to an article by @mscroggs about £1 coins. Dave denies ever having walked out of the Bank of England with 20 one-pound coins in his shoes - but then, he would. We discuss counterfeiting.
• Dave has a ridiculous thing:

We refer to my fake maths post.

• Dave’s student answered “Simplify $7a + 5b + 3a - 2b$ with $10A + 3b$. Should they get the marks?
• @robeastaway also has a ridiculous thing:

We agree that prescribing methods is wrong.

• Colin mentions @robjlow’s post on quadratics
• We discuss the effects of the new GCSE and A-level on uptake. This involves a shout-out to @stecks and @peterrowlett’s Taking Maths Further podcast
• Last month’s puzzles: @chrishazell72 gets a gold star for a mean of 250.5 for Christian’s 1000 means puzzle, and says that getting 10 $\frac 1 3$ chances in a row over 100 trials is about 1/1000
• This month: a square has an area of 18. What’s its diagonal? Also, Find all triples of positive integers $(a,b,c)$ such that $\left(1 + \frac 1 a\right)\left(1 + \frac 1 b\right)\left(1 + \frac 1 c\right) = 2$