I prepared a small demonstration of the Chaos game for some math teachers. First we used transparencies, markers, dice, and rulers, but humans are mistake-prone and slow. To The Computer! I decided to experiment with the rules of the game to … Continue reading
Buffon’s Needle is a famous way to (slowly) estimate . Here’s a processing.org program to calculate (to keep the math-hipster hatred of -day at a critical point and concave up). Link to live simulation and code. All variables are easy to … Continue reading
This is a crosspost from my Photo 180 blog. Power Series work in AP Calculus BC. Process: Since it’s a infinite series, look at partial sums to get an idea what this graph looks like. So look at … Perfect … Continue reading
My best teachers were not the ones who knew all the answers, but those who were deeply excited by questions they couldn’t answer. — Brian Greene (@bgreene) February 5, 2014 Fantastic.
It’s midterm week at school, and James Tanton threw out two interesting questions in two days. I spent a little time programming “solutions” to these problems (not solutions, just verifications for an infinitesimally small portion of the natural numbers). Problem … Continue reading
Saw this tweet yesterday: All prime numbers between 2 and 2073600 mapped as pixels ARE THE MATRIX http://t.co/5skoRMc0gh — Kyle Hill (@Sci_Phile) January 14, 2014 Pretty cool. Josh Giesbrecht also did some great work with Mathematica to replicate the image. … Continue reading
From cartalk. Ray: Get a piece of paper and write the number four, leave a little space, and write the number five. What common mathematical symbol, when placed between the numbers four and five, will result in a number that … Continue reading
I happened upon this tweet when I got to work this morning: Freeing imprisoned clones: finally a use for geometric series that isn't about computing interest http://t.co/FpJWxO73xI @numberphile #math — Matt Caicco (@MatthewJCaicco) December 20, 2013 So I watched the … Continue reading
From Wikipedia’s entry on Super Balls. Wham-O Executive Vice-president Richard P. Kerr said, “Each Super Ball bounce is 92% as high as the last. Will it ever stop bouncing? Geometric sequences and series anybody? edit: Amazon review of a superball: … Continue reading
Fellow Empire State rep Kate Nowak requested answers to the following in her post: Tell Me Why You Blog. 1. What hooked you on reading the blogs? Was it a particular post or person? Was it an initiative by the … Continue reading