Mathematics

The Joy of Stats (Video)

Updated: 2010-12-31 13:15:00

The Joy of Stats is an hour long BBC documentary by Professor Hans Rosling, in which he illustrates the beauty and importance of statistics as a means of understanding the world and society in which we live. This documentary is now available for the first time to audiences worldwide: (Tip of the hat to Flowing [...]

PIE

Updated: 2010-12-31 00:47:31

I was teaching my students PIE, the Principle of Inclusion and Exclusion. This was the last lesson of 2010 and it seemed natural to have a party and bring some pie. It appears that the school has a new rule. If I want to bring any food to class, I need [...]

Free Kindle Math Books

Updated: 2010-12-31 00:03:57

The CK-12 Foundation is a wonderful non-profit organization. Recently they released several free Kindle ebooks about Mathematics. Currently in the Kindle store you can find the following CK-12 Foundation math titles, all priced at $0.00: Algebra I Geometry Trigonometry Calculus Advanced Probability and Statistics From a cursory look it would seem that the content of [...]

A Present for the Whole Family—A Thermometer!

Updated: 2010-12-30 18:28:40

What’s the temperature outside? Want a present that the whole family can enjoy? Buy an outside thermometer! It’s a great way to use real-life math. Place the thermometer in a place that your child can easily see it. Teach them how to read it. Show them how you look at the top of the red line and [...]

Tuesday Teacher Tips: Snowman Math

Updated: 2010-12-28 19:05:04

Welcome to the Tuesday Teacher Tips series! Each week we’ll highlight teaching and learning resources, ideas to use in the classroom, as well as things to ponder as you go about your teaching day. Embrace winter with a little snowman math. Here are some great sites to get your ideas flowing. Mathwire.com: Standards-Based Math Activities: This site [...]

Wild About Math bloggers 12/17/10

Updated: 2010-12-24 15:37:34

Wild About Math Making Math fun and accessible Home About Articles Math contest problem links Videos Wild About Math bloggers 12 17 10 December 24th , 2010 by Sol The 12 24 Christmas Eve edition of Wild About Math Bloggers is at Equalis Here’s the 12 17 edition . Fun happenings in the blog world this week . . Enjoy Robert at Casting Out Nines writes about Rebuilding the Antikythera Mechanism out of Lego The Antikythera is an ancient calculator that was used , with striking accuracy , to predict celestial . events http : www.youtube.com watch v=RLPVCJjTNgk If you’ve not yet discovered Vi Hart’s math doodles or the rest of Vi’s site you’re in for a great treat . Vi exemplifies really well how Math can be great fun . Hat tip to Denise at Let’s Play Math and to the Natural Math list . I

My Best Mathematical and Logic Puzzles (Math & Logic Puzzles)

Updated: 2010-12-24 00:28:17

Noted expert selects 70 “short” puzzles. The Returning Explorer, The Mutilated Chessboard, Scrambled Box Tops, and 67 more. Solutions included. Price: $4.95 Click here to buy from Amazon Social Bookmarking

Holiday Math Activities

Updated: 2010-12-23 22:06:57

We’re all for giving the kids a break over the holidays. At the same time, parents often need a break too! We thought we’d help out by offering some winter fun activities to keep the kids engaged. And hey, there’s nothing that says fun has to be mindless. Here are some ideas that we think [...]

Problem Design for Multiple Choice Questions

Updated: 2010-12-23 21:12:52

I gave my students a problem from the 2002 AMC 10-A: Tina randomly selects two distinct numbers from the set {1, 2, 3, 4, 5}, and Sergio randomly selects a number from the set {1, 2, …, 10}. The probability that Sergio’s number is larger than the sum of the two [...]

Blindfolded Charades

Updated: 2010-12-23 20:21:55

This is a version of the standard charades game that my son, Sergei Bernstein, invented. Unlike in regular charades, the person who acts out the phrase doesn’t know what the phrase is and has to guess it. The viewers on the other hand, know the phrase but they are not allowed to [...]

Ti-84 Plus Silver Edition giveaway winner

Updated: 2010-12-23 17:34:47

Wild About Math Making Math fun and accessible Home About Articles Math contest problem links Videos Ti-84 Plus Silver Edition giveaway winner December 23rd , 2010 by Sol On December 9th I announced a contest to solve a challenge proposed by James . Tanton STEM skills science , technology engineering and math hold the key to tomorrow’s innovation . To help students learn tomorrow’s job skills , Wild About Math has teamed-up with Texas Instruments to give away a TI-84 Plus Silver Edition graphing calculator with GraphiTI package . To learn more about TI-84 graphing calculators or other TI products , visit : http : education.ti.com To learn more about STEM careers , visit : http : education.ti.com studentzone The problem was harder than I thought it would be . I got two submissions and only

Tuesday Teacher Tips: How many inches of snow are we getting?

Updated: 2010-12-22 00:42:02

Welcome to the Tuesday Teacher Tips series! Each week we’ll highlight teaching and learning resources, ideas to use in the classroom, as well as things to ponder as you go about your teaching day. With the current winter storm in my area, everyone is keeping their eye on the weather. Weather presents lots of opportunities for [...]

Happenings – 2010 Dec 18

Updated: 2010-12-18 17:59:13

This will be a very short post. Since last Saturday morning I’ve managed to do some abstract algebra – I’ve started chapter 2 (!) of Dummit & Foote’s “Abstract Algebra”. I also started playing with Lynch’s “Dynamical Systems with Applications using Mathematica”. And I have done absolutely no work on the next blog post, but [...]

Wild About Math bloggers 12/10/10

Updated: 2010-12-17 15:55:28

Wild About Math Making Math fun and accessible Home About Articles Math contest problem links Videos Wild About Math bloggers 12 10 10 December 17th , 2010 by Sol The 12 17 edition is at Equalis Here’s the 12 10 edition . December 10th is my birthday so today’s column is the Happy Birthday to me” edition . And , in honor of my birthday , I’m running a contest at Wild About Math where you can win a TI-84 Silver Edition graphing calculator for solving the James Tanton puzzle at the end of this : video http : www.youtube.com watch v=GYDtv6nJWOg Carnival of Mathematics 72 is posted at the 360 Blog Here’s a great trick performed by David Copperfield based on something called Kruskal’s principle . It is the most clever application of this principle I’ve seen and I’ve seen a bunch . See Grey

Oz: The Magical Adventure

Updated: 2010-12-17 00:28:17

Oz: The Magical Adventure Price: Click here to buy from Amazon Social Bookmarking

Teaching Math Vocabulary

Updated: 2010-12-15 20:10:47

In a child’s everyday life, the meanings of words used in their general usage are often very different from their mathematical meanings such as similar, even, odd, multiply, factor, prime, and power. Talk to your students about the difference in meanings when common words have special mathematical meanings. For example: Joseph was scared, even his knees [...]

Dear Spammer

Updated: 2010-12-12 20:00:26

Dear Nita Palmira, I do not recall your name and I’m not sure where you got my email address from, but I really appreciate you contacting me. I am excited by your Two-Procedures-For-The-Price-Of-One offer. I am really looking forward to my enlarged penis and my DDD breasts. Meanwhile, I can give you a [...]

Happenings – 2010 Dec 12

Updated: 2010-12-12 18:43:54

It’s been a busy week… for things other than mathematics. And I never did do any mathematics or a blog post yesterday. I did, however, do a little work on color theory last weekend and this weekend. To be specific, I have been taking photographs around my house… of things that are partly in shade. [...]

Wild About Math bloggers 12/3/10

Updated: 2010-12-11 18:49:02

Wild About Math Making Math fun and accessible Home About Articles Math contest problem links Videos Wild About Math bloggers 12 3 10 December 11th , 2010 by Sol The 12 10 edition of Wild About Math Bloggers is at Equalis Following is last week’s edition . Happy December , Everybody Let’s get rolling with this week’s Wild About Math Bloggers Mathematics and Multimedia Blog Carnival 5 is up at Math . Hombre The Republic of Mathematics Blog has a nice indirect proof of a problem that James Tanton posted on twitter that when we round n+sqrt(n for integer n , we never get a perfect square . And , in his style , James Tanton generalizes the problem Round n+sqrt(n to nearest integer and get the non-square numbers . Round n+sqrt(2n get non-triangulars . What non-numbers are n+sqrt(3n Thanks ,

Supporting Math Learning: The Six DO’s for Families and Teachers

Updated: 2010-12-09 22:10:19

This months NCTM’s President’s Message, focuses on how to help your child or student with math. This instantly reminded me of doing homework after school, struggling with a math problem, and asking my mother for help. When she heard the problem she apologized–she couldn’t remember how to do the math I was working on. NCTM’s President, J. [...]

Another TI-84 Plus Silver Edition giveaway puzzle contest!

Updated: 2010-12-09 19:42:51

Wild About Math Making Math fun and accessible Home About Articles Math contest problem links Videos Another TI-84 Plus Silver Edition giveaway puzzle contest December 9th , 2010 by Sol I’ve been thoroughly enjoying the books James Tanton sent me , which infuse Math education with life and joy and play , along with the Youtube videos that cover some of the topics in the books . One of his videos particularly intrigued me because it covers a topic I’ve never run into in my 30+ years of playing with Math . So , I thought I’d invite each of you to watch this particular video , to solve the challenge at the end of the video and , if you’re lucky , to win a TI-84 Plus Silver Edition calculator for your . efforts But first , a word from our : sponsor STEM skills science , technology engineering

Spirograph on steroids!

Updated: 2010-12-09 06:32:00

Remember that children’s toy that has gears and a hole for a pen that you make cool curved shapes with? Well, check out this “Three Pendulum Rotary Harmonograph.” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H4YQonwQUDs SHARETHIS.addEntry({ title: "Spirograph on steroids!", url: "http://wildaboutmath.com/2010/12/08/spirograph-on-steroids/" });

Area word problems

Updated: 2010-12-09 00:47:08

Learn to solve a variety of area word problems. The explanation is crystal clear

How to become a statistician

Updated: 2010-12-05 14:29:05

How to become a statistician. Find out how a math major can help you get a good statistician job

Perimeter word problems

Updated: 2010-12-05 13:48:36

Learn to solve a variety of perimeter word problems The explanation is crystal clear

Happenings – 2010 Dec 4

Updated: 2010-12-04 19:57:19

What’s up? First of all, I have two comments about the blog. One, the CIE chromaticity chart has passed the first axis and angle of rotation post as the number one post on the blog, all time. Second, the post about the minimum number of triangles in a triangulation has moved slightly ahead of the [...]

Can Charter Schools be Scaled Successfully?

Updated: 2010-12-03 23:34:25

Last week’s Waiting for Superman’s debate asked the question, ‘Can Charter Schools be Scaled Successfully?’ Kevin Hall, a member of DreamBox Learning’s Board of Directors, weighed in on the debate. Hear both sides of the debate and tell us what you think! Position A: “We are beginning to see CMOs succeed in delivering consistent high-level quality across [...]