In particular, this diagram from that page makes the process clear: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Black_Buck#/media/Fi...
Hopefully the name of the original mission is enough to help you find a link to some relevant mathematics :-)
- each vertical line is the flight of an airplane
- each horizontal/diagonal line is a refueling operation
So, planes take of from Ascension Island at the bottom, only one reaches the Falkland Islands.
Ignoring the gray vertical lines (they are for ‘insurance’, in case other planes would have hit a problem), we have:
- 6 Victors taking of
- 3 of them refueling the other 3 after a short while (presumably because taking of and getting to flight height uses more fuel than steady flight), immediately returning to base afterwards.
- the bomber taking off
- a seventh Victor taking off, refueling the bomber twice, and then returning to base
- one of the 3 Victors of the first wave refuels the bomber twice, then refuels another of the three before returning to base
- that second one refuels the third one and returns to base
Etc.
Of all the aicraft that took off, only one actually flew over the target. It had to be refueled seven times on outbound journey, and the last tanker itself had to be refueled three times to fly that far.
Er. Sorry, I'm being thick, but your hint about the link to the relevant maths etc went way over my head. I might be missing a cultural reference? :0