From Car Talk:
RAY: This Puzzler came from Kevin Tobin. A maharajah owned a mango tree that had very sweet, abundant fruit. People would come from miles around to pick the fruit. So the maharajah decided to protect the tree by erecting a series of seven concentric fences around it. Each fence had...
Not what it sounds like.
The four dog problem from Steve Strogatz:
N dogs start in the corners of a regular N-gon. Each runs directly toward the dog on its left. How far do they run before colliding?
— Steven Strogatz (@stevenstrogatz) October 27, 2015
Yet another great car talk puzzler, The Last Seat:
RAY: You’re one of a hundred people standing in line to get onto an airplane that has 100 seats. There’s a seat for every person who’s in line, and each of you has a boarding pass for your assigned a seat. The first person to walk onto the pla...
This tweet was retweeted by Steve Strogatz:
@stevenstrogatz great @Mathologer video on the cardioid and its family: https://t.co/ElDxW67N3X
— Anna Lukács (@launknaacs) November 6, 2015
What a great video, linking linear functions, cardiods, and the family of Mandelbrot sets. Rang m...
(This post demonstrates the math behind the creation of some unusual math art. I got the idea from this tumblr post which I don’t even think works like this. But it was the inspiration behind the pictures.)
Take this function: f(x) = x^2 + a*cos(ax). When you take values of a between 0 and 8...
The madeup language for creating 3d models came out a week ago for the kickstarter backers. There is more information about the computer programming language found at the kickstarter page. It’s been a lot of fun to play with but looking at it through the lens of being able to create calculus 3d...
PSA: check out Anna Weltman’s new book, This Is Not A Math Book. Looks great.
Also check out Dan Meyer’s fall contest (ends 10/6/15) that asks the students to be creative in making their own Loop-de-loop mathematical art.
Programming connection: have the students make their loop-de-loop with p...
At TMC 2015 I attended a fantastic session by Rachel Kernodle that encouraged us to improve our questioning in class. I took this goal to heart, in fact, it ended up being my “One TMC15 Thing” that I’d like to work on.
#1TMCthing Improve my questioning in class, have students interpret each o...
From the fantastic car talk puzzler division
RAY: There’s a rare disease that’s sweeping through your town. Of all the people who are exposed to it, 0.1 percent of the people actually contract the disease. There are no symptoms until the disease actually occurs. However, there’s a diagnostic test...
From the fantastic car talk puzzler:
NEW BARBER MATH
RAY: A barber had his first customer of the day, who happened to be a friend. When he was done, the barber refused to take the money from the customer. The fellow said, “Look, I know we’re friends, but, business is business. I want to pay fo...