Nelson Mandela Day

July 18th is Nelson Mandela's birthday, he would have been 97.

The United Nations calls it Mandela Day, or international day for freedom, justice and democracy. They say:

Every year on 18 July — the day Nelson Mandela was born — the UN joins a call by the Nelson Mandela Foundation to devote 67 minutes of time to helping others, as a way to mark Nelson Mandela International Day.

For 67 years Nelson Mandela devoted his life to the service of humanity — as a human rights lawyer, a prisoner of conscience, an international peacemaker and the first democratically elected president of a free South Africa.

There is more here: http://www.un.org/en/events/mandeladay/

There are a number of events being organised in Bermuda.

It looks like things might kick off early with this event at Bermuda College:

On the Eve of Nelson Mandela Day

Collaboration by:

ADHT, Bermuda College, Chewstick, HRC, Imagine Bermuda

Presents

Another Kind of ‘Happy Hour’

Based @ the Bermuda College Library

FRIDAY, JULY 17TH 5.30 – 7.30 pm

MUSIC……….POETRY………STORY-SHARING

NETWORKING…….NETPLAYING

Meet and Greet,

Even stump your feet,

Although Challenging,

Remember, Life is Sweet!

There are others planning events, I will try to post details here.

I am thinking of going to different events and doing sixty-seven minutes of pi.

Mandela often spoke of Ubuntu:

Ubuntu does not mean that people should not enrich themselves. The question therefore is: Are you going to do so in order to enable the community around you to be able to improve?

Trivia

import math
from ipython_doctester import test

# FIXME 
# ipython_doctester broken, might be this prob: https://github.com/catherinedevlin/ipython_doctester/pull/5
#@test
def prime(n):
    """ Simple primality tester

    Examples:
    
    >>> prime(15)
    False

    >>> prime(67)
    True
    """

    # Deal with some small numbers
    if n <= 2: return True

    factor = 2

    while factor < math.sqrt(n):
        if 0 == (n % factor): return False
        
        factor += 1

    return True

# Is 67 prime?
print("Is 67 prime?")
print(prime(67))

# Mandela would have been 97
print("Is 97 prime?")
print(prime(97))

Is 67 prime?
True
Is 97 prime?
True

Sixty-seven minutes of $\pi$

Angles are measured in different units. Mostly, people seem to use degrees.

A right angle is 90 degrees. The angles in a triangle add up to 180 degrees.

In mathematics it is often useful to use different units, radians.

$\pi$ radians is equal to 180 degrees. So the angles in a triangle add up to 180 degrees.

Now just as there are 60 minutes in an hour, there are also 60 minutes in a degree.

So, 67 minutes of $\pi$ is just 67 minutes from 180 degrees.

$$ x = \pi * 67 / (180 * 60)$$

# In python

math.pi * 67 / (180 * 60)

0.019489509980603347

# Now 67 minutes of pi number begins 0.01948.

1948 + 67 

2015

So if Mandela had started his campaigning on his birthday in 1948 he would still be at it today.

The UN are just asking you to spend 67 minutes helping others on his birthday.