The sixth group of essays from the 2021 Teddy Rocks Maths Competition come from entrants with names beginning with the letters M or N. The showcase will take place throughout May with the winners being announced at the end of the month.

The competition was organised with St Edmund Hall at the University of Oxford and offers a cash prize plus publication on the university website. It will be running again in early 2022 so be sure to follow Tom (Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube) to make sure you don’t miss the announcement!

All essays can be read in full (as submitted) by clicking on the title below. If you enjoy any of them please let the author know by leaving a comment.

Mahika explores differential calculus and how it has been applied to model the COVID-19 pandemic.

Maoda discusses the shortest length-scales and timescales present in our universe.

Markus describes a universe where we have 12 fingers and as such counting takes place in base 12.

Marta explores the golden ratio and its relationship to the fibonacci sequence.

Matthew extends induction from the natural numbers to the reals with a proof of the Heine-Borel Theorem.

Matthew takes a tour through infinite series from convergent to divergent via the Riemann Zeta function.

Megan tells the mathematical tale of the Priests of the Temple of Benares and the end of the world.

Mike takes us on a journey into higher dimensions and understanding the Poincare Conjecture.

Muhammad applies algebra to solve problems in daily life.

Muhammad Nabil explains why gambling will never be a foolproof way to make money.

Nicolas introduces the Elo and Glicko rating systems used commonly in chess and online gaming.

Nilton explores mathematical curves, from simple graphs to chaos theory.

Noah investigates the links between the golden ratio and geometry.

Nur tells the story of algorithms and how they have come to rule the modern world.

Nurin solves the problem of buying a watch for their father using least-squares regression.

Josh explores graph theory from its discovery by Euler to its use in mapping the London Underground.

Joshua links mathematics and politics with an analysis of voting systems.