2011 Top Ten of Polemic for Mathematics

Petals Around the Rose: Petals Around the Rose is a mathematically challenging puzzle in which the object is to work out the formula by which a number is derived from the roll of a set of five or six dice. It is often used as an exercise in inductive reasoning. The puzzle became popular in computer circles in the mid 1970s, particularly through an anecdote recounted in Personal Computing which depicts Bill Gates working out the solution in an airport
Conservation law: In physics, a conservation law states that a particular measurable property of an isolated physical system does not change as the system evolves over time. Exact conservation laws include conservation of mass and energy, conservation of linear momentum, conservation of angular momentum, and conservation of electric charge. There are also many approximate conservation laws, which apply to such quantities as mass, parity, lepton number, baryon number, strangeness, hypercharge, etc. These quantities are
Maya numerals: The Mayan numeral system was the system to represent numbers and calendar dates in the Maya civilization. It was a vigesimal (base-20) positional numeral system. The numerals are made up of three symbols; zero, one and five. For example, thirteen is written as three dots in a horizontal row above two horizontal bars; sometimes it is also written as three vertical dots to the left of two vertical bars. With these three symbols, each of the twenty vigesimal digits could be written
Linear equation: In mathematics, a linear equation is an equation that may be put in the form where are the variables, and are the coefficients, which are often real numbers. The coefficients may be considered as parameters of the equation, and may be arbitrary expressions, provided they do not contain any of the variables. To yield a meaningful equation, the coefficients are required to not all be zero
Counterargument: In reasoning and argument mapping, a counterargument is an objection to an objection. A counterargument can be used to rebut an objection to a premise, a main contention or a lemma. Synonyms of counterargument may include rebuttal, reply, counterstatement, counterreason, comeback and response. The attempt to rebut an argument may involve generating a counterargument or finding a counterexample
Triangular prism: In geometry, a triangular prism is a three-sided prism; it is a polyhedron made of a triangular base, a translated copy, and 3 faces joining corresponding sides. A right triangular prism has rectangular sides, otherwise it is oblique. A uniform triangular prism is a right triangular prism with equilateral bases, and square sides
Randomness: In common usage, randomness is the apparent or actual lack of pattern or predictability in events. A random sequence of events, symbols or steps often has no order and does not follow an intelligible pattern or combination. Individual random events are, by definition, unpredictable, but if the probability distribution is known, the frequency of different outcomes over repeated events is predictable. For example, when throwing two dice, the outcome of any particular roll is unpredictable, but a sum of 7
Statistician: A statistician is a person who works with theoretical or applied statistics. The profession exists in both the private and public sectors
Round-off error: A roundoff error, also called rounding error, is the difference between the result produced by a given algorithm using exact arithmetic and the result produced by the same algorithm using finite-precision, rounded arithmetic. Rounding errors are due to inexactness in the representation of real numbers and the arithmetic operations done with them. This is a form of quantization error. When using approximation equations or algorithms, especially when using finitely many digits to represent real numbers, one
Arbelos: In geometry, an arbelos is a plane region bounded by three semicircles with three apexes such that each corner of each semicircle is shared with one of the others (connected), all on the same side of a straight line that contains their diameters