030214 The repetend is six

By February 3, 2014 Uncategorized, zBlog Archives

030214_LR

The OED has a sense of humour in a Sheldon Cooper sort of way. If you remember, yesterday’s word was repetend (‘That is or is to be repeated’, OED) and as it is to be repeated, today’s word was also repetend, but this time as a noun with a mathematical definition: ‘The digit or sequence of digits repeated in a recurring decimal fraction'(OED). So today’s pic shows that two out of three people are unreal – or, in order to invoke the repetend, 66.66666 (recurring) % of the population is unreal. This also serves as a reminder for ensuring that proper sampling techniques are employed before making sweeping generalisations.

Day #34 of a 365 project, where the daily pic is informed by theĀ OED word of the day.