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Yes, two actually. BA with first class honours in mathematics 1977 and M.Sc in mathematical education 1990.

The high percentage of young people going to university these days is a joke. Most of them don't have the intellectual ability to properly study at university level. Standards at some of the newer universities (which in my opinion should never have been given the title) are ridiculously low...

This is because of the formula Weight on hook x Distance of hook from wall = height of bracket x force on the wall Coat hook brackets are usually quite short so the force on the wall is quite considerable.

Yes, and if you remove all the fixings there won't be any force pulling the wall. If you remove the top fixing you just add extra force pulling out the next one down.

I am not a builder, but I'm treating this as an applied mathematics problem which I do know something about. The weight is of course downward but this does produce a turning effect tending to pull the top fixing from the wall (and trying to press the bottom one into the wall which matters a lot...

By "close together" I assume that you mean too close for conventional pipe insulation that comes as foam tubing. You could use loft insulation wrapped around them. Also, when I put foam pipe lagging on my pipes in the loft, I had to remove some material about 2 inches wide that was wound...

"I would obviously get the deposit back at the end of the tenancy" Not necessarily so. My son has rented several properties over the last 20 years. The agents or LL often find some spurious reason why the deposit or part of it should be forfeited. If it is refunded it is after a long delay...

Some months ago I was thinking of making a built-in wardrobe. I found some places via the internet that make doors in a wide variety of sizes and will even make them to your measurements. I'm sorry but I didn't keep a reference to any of them because in the end I bought ready-made wardrobes...

This sounds very like what has already been done to a house that my son has just bought. The previous people even installed a proper stairway but this caused his surveyor to issue a warning. This "room" is not up to building regulations standard (and without considerable expense never could be)...

I've just given the original question to my wife. She immediately came back with the best answer from the original post. Knew I married the right one 40 years ago!

This reminds me of a question used in selecting people for the RAF many years ago. You are the pilot of a plane which crash lands in rough countryside (or jungle or desert) hundreds of miles from any help. You get the aircraft working on reduced power and so can go for help but taking only...

Noseall, are you saying that the best policy is to remove the staircase and replace it with a loft hatch and stowable loft ladder? Could the "room" then be left in its present state and used on an occasional basis for something. (If it were mine it would make a great model railway room.)

Thank you Freddy for your reply. I don't think that it would be difficult to remove the carpet and some of the boarding to see what, if anything, has been done to the joists. There is no door but I don't think that it would be difficult to incorporate one. Anyway, he wants to do something...

My son, who is single, has just bought a 1960's ex-council house in a quiet cul-de-sac. It is a two-storey, end of terrace house, generally in good condition and has fairly large rooms, so he is very pleased with it. However, it has one odd feature. The loft has been converted to what was...

Adrian, here's one for your own specialism. A youngish head of mathematics was showing a class how to find the mean when two groups are combined. She told them to add the individual group means and halve it. For some reason I was present, and made a surprised face. She asked me to confirm...

More students are now getting grade A in mathematics A-level than used to pass the exam at all. Possible explanations are 1. Teaching is now very much more effective than it used to be when I started in 1965. 2. Students are now much more intelligent and/or hard working than before. 3...

Adrian, you may be interested in this example if you haven't already heard about it. A few years ago, a child was given the homework question 9 divided by 0 and gave as his answer that it was impossible. The teacher marked his answer wrong and said that the correct answer was 9. His father...

Whitespirit well done! I'm a retired, life-long, mathematics teacher and so know that what you have described is pretty much spot-on. Dumbing down has now gone so far that I don't know why anyone bothers to deny it.

For the insulation you could also use large sheets of 50mm thick polystyrene. I used these when I partitioned off part of my large integral garage to make an office. They are much easier than loft insulation when fitting vertically. B & Q sell 1200 by 450 mm sheets for £3.48 each. I think that...

Very good advice. The other day I was using a hobby drill with a disc cutter to cut some model railway track. The note that it made suddenly changed. When I had stopped it, I found that half of the disc had shattered and flown off somewhere. It could have been in my eyes but luckily wasn't. I...