Road Sign Math

James Bernard captured this sign after passing under it at least 50 times without recognizing the mathematical significance that it was hiding.

Mr. Bernard applied some very nice crunching to make this sign unwind.
((\sqrt{9})! \times 14) - 15 = 69
This sign is on westbound highway 235 in Des Moines, Iowa. See sign on map!

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Gerald Thurman grabbed this sign while browsing the Maple Ash neighborhood in Tempe, Arizona.

Mr. Thurman stacks square roots on top of square roots to create a mathematical pyramid that a high school cheerleading squad would be jealous of.
\sqrt{\sqrt{20 - \sqrt{\sqrt{1600} - 24}}} = 2
This sign is on S. Ash Avenue near W. 10th Street [...]

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Gerald Thurman found this sign on the lesser traveled roads of Arizona.

Mr. Thurman applied some quick ratios and figured he was close to a special constant.
{{504 + 1}\over{260 + 52}} \approx 1.61858974 \approx \varphi
This sign is located in Arizona’s Rim Country. See sign on map!

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Road Sign Math beginner Ben Coates sends in only the second sign from the great state of Illinois.

Mr. Coates barely got this picture off in time to get it submitted to our site.
(237 - 235) + (74 - 72) - 1 = 3
This sign is found while heading north on I-57 in Illinois. See sign [...]

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Road Sign Math has attracted orders of magnitude more attention than could have ever been expected. We now have dozens of people playing the game all over the United States, including some people playing from foreign countries.
The game continues to evolve and strategy gets more and more complicated. We are working on a completely [...]

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Jamie Thingelstad found this great sign just outside of the campus for his employer. It’s great to see such wonderful math so closely aligned to other parts of your life!

Sadly, it took several times before Mr. Thingelstad noticed this sign was a winner. The math is very obvious.
12 + 20 = 32
This sign is [...]

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Jamie Thingelstad found this sign in the birthplace of Road Sign Math, Minnesota. Just outside of the great bicycling and recreation destination of Lanesboro this wonderful sign was placed for the mathematically curious.

The math on this sign could knock you over with it’s simplicity.
4 + 14 = 18
This sign is found on outside of [...]

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H.B. Elkins is on a terror and brings us yet another mathematically significant roadsign, this time from Ohio.

This is the most common approximation of pi, but the great thing is how direct this winner makes it.
22 \div 7 \approx \pi
This sign was found on in Steubenville, Ohio just across the Ohio River from Weirton, West [...]

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H.B. Elkins grabbed this winer while outside of Carlisle, Kentucky.

Simple enough math here.
32 + 36 = 68
This sign is in Carlisle, Kentucky. See sign on map!

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H.B. Elkins brings us this winning sign in a treo from Tompkinsville, KY. This is the first “hat trick” in RSM history!

The math here is wonderfully simple.
100 + 63 = 163
This sign is in downtown Tompkinsville, Kentucky. See sign on map!

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