Okay, so they are all pretty fun to read. I liked this one. In part because it talks about how she started out as a reader and only then got interested in mathematics.
http://www.quantamagazine.org/20140812-a-tenacious-explorer-of-abstract-surfaces/
A Little Bit of Modeling. A Whole Lot of Love.
Geometry, Statistics, and Discrete Math
So we’ll need a class website, but for now, here is a place where I can put things and you can find them. In particular, three people completed the homework for this class. I wanted the answer to the questions:
What is a radian?
How big is it?
Here are the answers I received:
So, on your white boards, or a piece of paper, describe what a radian is.
Thanks.
Saturday, August 24, 2013
Joe Hanson has a new profile photo on his blog: It’s Okay to be Smart.
Isn’t that great? BE CURIOUS. Leads you into the best kind of trouble, in my opinion.
On his blog in the last few weeks…(click the photo to see more)
He also suggests that we go to this website and listen to pi played as musical tones. I have to admit to listening for over 10 minutes.
I haven’t posted in a little while so today’s post is a roundup of some of my favorite people and sites. Next up…Brain Pickings:
This was REALLY fun for me to read. Click if you want to read too:
Another excellent post from Maria Popova raises the question of how journalists should report on science and uncertainty. Relevant in my life is the changing role the media plays in getting information to people, and as Sam Vimes says (satire and/or Terry Pratchett fans high five!) “Who Watches the Watchers?” How to we know what is true? A discussion that we will no doubt have at school and in many contexts. Here is the link to this thought-provoking start.
Then of course, there is the ever popular category of “Links and photos people send me on twitter because they know I like math” [still listening to pi-tones, by the way…] Included among these gems are:
Why are soccer balls made of hexagons? (Mental Floss) Why do you think?
5 math formulas small business owners should know (Huffington Post) Can you guess?
The thing about this last link is that ALL FIVE formulas are just ratios. Better–oh, so much better–to understand deeply the power of ratio, to come to love the art of comparing, than to memorize formulas. Just saying.
And, finally,
An author I like. But I REALLY like this description of her workshop. Yes. Learning is sometimes so so wonderful when it is perfectly, deliciously, hard.
Michele
Geek Girls
I was going write a new post tonight, but now I can’t. This video deserves its own post. All to itself. Sigh.
P.S. Two things. First, look for sci-fi authors John Scalzi and Wil Wheaton. Second, I was a secretary and proud to be one. Otherwise, perfection.
July 13, 2013 The good, the bad, and the blue
“Just by exploiting the properties of a crystal, we have [insert really cool thing that we can now do thanks to MATH].
The first part is a quote from Veristasium, a scientist video blogger…
and the second part is from ME who watched his video on How a Transistor works with enthusiasm given the fact that I didn’t know how a transistor worked. Part of how a transistor works is through the science of semiconductors and his explanation of this is, I think, the best part of the video, including the aforementioned exploitation of the tetrahedral crystalline structure of silicon. A tetrahedron. One of my all time favorite polyhedra. Not only because you can make one from a standard mailing envelope.
Here’s the video!
Tor.com, in one of this week’s posts, showcases the work of Martin Klimas who breaks things and shows the beauty in the patterns that follow. Here is the picture they posted and one more from the gallery. If you click them, you will go right to more information and more from their post!
Common Sense Media has released a white paper outlining some of the ways that teens can combat gender stereotypes in social media. Here is the link to their article as well as the the paper itself. Yes. Just that. Yes.
*
Now, something beautiful: Nudibranch. Beautiful in and of themselves, of course, but also these photographs courtesy of Explore and my favorite, Joe Hanson of It’s Okay to be Smart. You HAVE to see ALL The pictures. The one I show here is just to lure you in. Click HERE to see them ALL!
And, finally, a post from Brain Pickings about the art of the humorous amazon review. You kind of have to read it to believe it. Here.
That said, I have to say that this is the kind of thing that always gives me hope. For all the insipid reality tv shows that make something really boring out of something really interesting there are just as many people doing really interesting things with some of the relatively straightforward but basic components of this modern world we live in.
LaForge
I am not against inspiring quotations…
…this one in particular from Albert Einstein is very nice. Certainly apropos to those of us with Baxter in mind. But even better is the rest of the paragraph of the letter Albert Einstein wrote to his son.
“I am very pleased that you find joy with the piano. This and carpentry are in my opinion for your age the best pursuits, better even than school. Because those are things which fit a young person such as you very well. Mainly play the things on the piano which please you, even if the teacher does not assign those. That is the way to learn the most, that when you are doing something with such enjoyment that you don’t notice that the time passes. I am sometimes so wrapped up in my work that I forget about the noon meal. . . .”
Einstein was 36 and living in Berlin and his sons were living in Vienna. If you’d like to know more, click through on the photo or on this originating tweet from Maria Popova’s Brainpickings to do so.
2. Our fabulous new 9th grade English teacher, Katelyn Virmalo, and I are going to be sending out a two part Summer Reading proposal to everyone. The first part is a shared read with choices on how to share your response to the book, the second part will be four groups of books. These four groups will provide those of us who LOVE reading lists or who love to read or who love to find out new things in this way some ideas for our own personal summer reading. It will also give me and the teachers a way to do some team building in the fall, with those of you reading books from one or more category being able to get into those four groups. There will be two additional groups as well, of course: those who read a lot but didn’t choose titles from the list or those who didn’t read much at all this summer but were doing other things.
With that in mind, I’m just going to share something I am reading right now: Eleanor and Park. I’m reading it with my ears instead of my eyes and since it is told in alternating chapters by Eleanor (really big red hair and new at school) and Park (South Korean and the only person on the bus to make room for Eleanor on the first day, however reluctantly), it is a great audiobook listen. Both male and female voices. I highly recommend reading the Watchman, XMen, and Swamp Thing comics at the same time as the book. Intrigued? Hope so.
3. Traversible (I’ve always called them “traceable” and while I’m not alone, a gsearch reveals I am in the minority) networks.
Yesterday, I brought my youngest daughter to my husband in our car. Yep. Only one. Jim works at Bowdoin and walks to work since we live so close. Since he was going to drive her to the doctor’s, I brought the car, and Maggie, to him. Then, of course, since it was a beautiful day and since my mind is always going 100 miles a minute these days, I walked home. It isn’t a very long walk and I tried to prolong it by wandering around the Bowdoin quad. I wonder if it is traceable. Fine, traversable.
“A network is traversable if you can trace each arc exactly once by beginning at some point and not lifting your pencil from the paper.”
Here’s the google map. What do you think?
OK, so you might be wondering exactly which paths I am talking about. I found a google chrome “app” for want of a better word, called Pixlr so I could show you which lines I mean.
I will also point out at this point that one can take a screenshot on a chromebook by…well, here is a screenshot from a review site called modmonstr. Click through to see other things that modmonstr says you can do with a chromebook:
So. The question for YOU of course, is. Is the network traversable. Can you start at one vertex (place where segments come together) and make your way back without tracing over any segments (crossing is okay) and still end up at the same place?
Happy 4th.
LaForge
Oh, and a friend on twitter sent me this:
I answered her with this. Surely you can do better than I did!
Again, happy 4th.
June 23: Anne LaMott Rides Again
School ended Wednesday and in the time since, I have hired two fabulous new teachers, Pam and Dave Rawson, who will be teaching math and chemistry next year but very likely lots of other things too, related or unrelated. I have also talked to parents and kids, worked on getting us together this summer (comment or email me if you are up for an evening gathering of Magic…er, the Gathering, or for an outside cleanup or other volunteer event), discussed curriculum with teachers, and worked on plans for our school orientation and team building for the fall.
For those of you reading my blog because you only want to see math-related items…nevermind. NO ONE is reading my blog for only math related items. Because there is no such thing. It’s all connected. Math, science, cooking, quilting, gaming, tree climbing, dancing, turtles, cookies, ipads, wood carving, and the Westing Game. That is to say, I will be continuing this blog, as I have started it. It is a place where I put ideas and links and stories that I discover or am told (by actual human beings that I know or by actual human beings and their virtual storytelling machines…blogs, vlogs, tweets and the like) so that I can tell them again. The blog originally started as an augment to my memory. It has turned out to be good at many other things, including helping me think more carefully or deeply about some things as well as prompting discussions with people I would not otherwise have been in discussion with.
So what about Anne LaMott?
Well, my two favorite books about writing are Bird by Bird by Anne LaMott and Writing Down the Bones by Natalie Goldberg. They helped get me through grad school and are books I go back to. My good friend and fabulous English teacher Jean reports that she loves Stephen King’s On Writing and it is on my list for this summer, but so are a lot of books. In any case…
Anne LaMott describes in the beginning of her book that she had to do a school report on birds once, as a kid, and she procrastinated and found herself having to do the whole report in one night. Her father’s advice to her was “bird by bird, honey. Bird by bird.”
The end of the school year was wild and wonderful as always, but this year was even wilder and more wonderful by the fact that for all intents and purposes, I was ending one school year while beginning another. I have not written anything here in a while. I suspect if you look back at last year, the same thing happened.
So.
I find myself in the position we ALL find ourselves in from time to time, not knowing exactly how to start a really big project, or how to get caught up when we feel so behind. But I take heart in the fact that I really do think it is all connected, and if I share here what I am thinking about now, it will adequately represent what I was thinking about last month. And also, bird by bird, baby. So this isn’t everything, but it is a start. And as I have to run off to meet a potential Baxter family this afternoon, I will offer up just a few birds, little ones. But things I have been thinking about or interested in.
1. I taught my daughter Temple. A game that five teenagers taught me. It is really fun, and we are working hard to indoctrinate the entire neighborhood. Wanna play?
2. Just read Equations of Life this morning, by Simon Morden. An actual paperback book purchased on the way back from the Sting concert in Bangor, on the waterfront. I have never been to a concert there, but I hope I only ever go to concerts there in the future. It was outside; it was beautiful; the sound was wonderful; there were fries. What more could I want? A book. so I bought this one. Wonderful post-apocalyptic sci-fi and the first of three. Here’s Simon’s bio:
Dr. Simon Morden, B.Sc. (Hons., Sheffield) Ph.D (Newcastle) is a bona fide rocket scientist, having degrees in geology and planetary geophysics. Unfortunately, that sort of thing doesn’t exactly prepare a person for the big wide world of work: he’s been a school caretaker, admin assistant, and PA to a financial advisor. He’s now employed as a part-time teaching assistant at a Gateshead primary school, which he combines with his duties as a house-husband, attempting to keep a crumbling pile of Edwardian masonry upright, wrangling his two children and providing warm places to sleep for the family cats.”
I love how science-y and writer-y he is.
3. From Explore, a map of skin color. Click here for just a little bit more.
4. From Maria Popova at Brain Pickings. (Hard to just pick one, but here’s one, more in a few days, or better, just SIGN UP. She is awesome.) A few weeks ago Brain Pickings linked me to a New York Times article on biking in the city, setting up five races and seeing which mode of transportation got you through a journey faster. This was really fun to read. And it would be great to recreate in Portland or in any of the places where we live. Here’s the link. Here is one of the routes they tested:
5. From Joe Hanson. Again, he led me to some very interesting places this week, but I’ll just share one. He sent a tweet linking to a site “Analyzing social networks in The Iliad and Beowulf to determine if they are based in truth. Mythical Facebook.” In other words, people went through the myths, the written records that we very often take to be fictional, even if based on real events, and discovered that the number of people, the ways in which they relate to one other, correlate to those we can study on facebook or twitter or linkdin. The researchers suggest that this might be evidence that the stories are true. Alternatively, it seems to me that perhaps the writers were just…well, really good writers, good observers of the human experience. Either way. Very cool. Here’s the link for more, very readable, information on this, and also a picture. That will be very mysterious and hopefully will make you want to read more.
6. Finally, two pictures. This one forwarded by a friend in NJ:
And one to click, so that the Fascinating Photos people get their fair share of kudos. Europe from Space. Click HERE.
I am off, but will continue to post during the next week. I have topic suggestions from parents at Baxter and more birds to write about in the way that I usually do. If YOU have suggestions or wishes, please do not hesitate to comment.
LaForge
Note to self: Climb more ladders
This really is a wonderful wonderful picture of math and science and ladders and the power of human minds. Although women, that should be us too up there. Just don’t forget that.
Ahh! So many interesting things, so little time, how to choose, and as my mother in law would say, “What a problem to have!”
So.
So many interesting things these last two weeks. An exercise in priorities? Or in blogging. Rather than write an incredibly long blog post today, I think I shall post one or two interesting things today and then spool out this week in the same manner. Ready? Ready.
First, I had a conversation with a friend on twitter yesterday, not particularly deep or anything, in fact it was one of those end of day, “how was your day?” kind of things. She likes to take photographs so a good question for her is: Did you get to take any pictures today? For me, questions tend to involve interesting things that happened with students or my kids or what I’m reading. So, during this conversation, she used TWO words that I DIDN’T KNOW AND HADN’T EVEN HEARD OF BEFORE! I love that.
Started it all. Because, when I objected to being called “puddin'”, she said:
And then I said to her, “100 teenagers will know these words tomorrow.”
And then she said, “Really, you’ll tell them about the words?”
And I answered, without thinking, “they learn what I learn.”
And it’s true. And they are glad it’s true. The converse is also true, of course, or it wouldn’t be a conversation. I learn what they learn. [I know, you are thinking, is she EVER going to tell us the words? Um, not yet. You may of course, look ahead.] Today, I was invited to sit in on a small group discussion of post-WWII America. The four students had researched the Cuban Missile Crisis, Birth Control, McDonald’s, and JFK, and the discussion protocol included each student presenting highlights but then answering the following two questions. 1) What do all the topics have in common, how do they hang together? The students decided that they all involved an element of a certain kind of risk-taking that was new in post war America. 2) What are the responsibilities of an American Citizen? (A question that runs throughout the course.) So that was really enlightening and interesting.
Finally, from 
What a great word!
Two other things that are at the top of the pile!
Finally…
From one of my (and maybe your, now) favorites: Joe Hanson of It’s OK to be Smart fame…
Here’s the credit and the info, followed by the first of SEVERAL really awesome string sculptures. Click the picture to see the rest!
In other news, I purchased a TI N-spire calculator for the ipad and I might love it more than anything. I’ll send pictures of what I’ve been doing on it in my next post. Now, off to read…
and, a reread (or a rerereread) on audio: The Wee Free Men because I laugh so hard:
and a quotation from it, to close:
“Open your eyes, then open your eyes again.”
ML
More than just Math Sightings 