Road Sign Math

One year ago Road Sign Math was a brand new “feature” of the Internet. With two, wimpy signs from Iowa the game of hunting for mathematically significant roadsigns was started. We really thought that Road Sign Math would be an esoteric site with few visitors. If wildly successful, we thought we might get 30 signs sent in the first year.

Now, 143 signs later from 39 regions we look back at the first-year as a huge success. We’ve evolved the rules from to the just released 3rd edition. We’ve added scoring to Road Sign Math creating a new opportunity for people to flex their heads in a variety of different ways. Road Sign Math has been highlighted on major sites, including the public radio show Cartalk.

To commemorate the first-year of Road Sign Math, Suzanne Merideth created this amazing collage bringing every winner together in one poster. What a wonderful retrospective!

If you would like to make your own poster you can download a high resolution version of this poster (12.1MB, please right click and select Save as)

As a point of trivia, if you add up all the numbers in the 143 mathematically significant signs it totals 58,604. The largest number to appear in a sign is 4,002 in Wellsboro. Additionally, addition is by far the most frequently used function with subtraction, multiplication and square root being very common as well.

A snapshot of the standings after one year.

Region Competition

1. Massachusetts, USA with 171.5 and 29 signs
2. Pennsylvania, USA with 146.5 and 18 signs
3. Minnesota, USA with 67.7 and 10 signs
4. California, USA with 66.3 and 9 signs
5. Florida, USA with 47.2 and 6 signs

Player Competition

1. David Slauenwhite at 266.8 points with 33 signs
2. Randy Weiss at 177.7 points with 31 signs
3. Jamie Thingelstad at 109.1 points with 20 signs
4. Roger Knowles at 90.1 points with 12 signs
5. Dave Oosterhuis at 45.8 points with 7 signs

Sign Competition

1. Castle Pi from David Slauenwhite at 19.4 points
2. Euler? Anybody? from David Slauenwhite at 16 points
3. Woodstock from Randy Weiss at 13.5 points
4. Triggly Wiggly from David Slauenwhite at 13.3 points
5. Just The Numbers from Rosalin Chrest at 12.6 points

We can only hope the 2nd year is as successful as the first!

Remember,