Math Archives (16 entries)

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Math Archives — Things relating to mathematics or to teaching mathematics.

Mathematical Mind Reader

· 12 July 2006 | 245 words

Go see The Flash Mind Reader. It's pretty cool. It really works. But how does it work?...

Rare Time

· 4 April 2006 | 20 words

Tomorrow, at two minutes and three seconds after one o'clock, the digital time and date will be: 1:02:03 on 04/05/06...

Functions f and g

· 21 March 2006 | 197 words

Today in calculus class, we were finding the area between two curves. More specifically, as I pointed toward the graph on the board, I said, "Let's find the area between functions f and g." It sounded like, "f-n-g." Or maybe...

Happy Pi Day!

· 14 March 2006 | 206 words

Ten decimals are sufficient to give the circumference of the earth to the fraction of an inch, and thirty decimals would give the circumference of the whole visible universe to a quantity imperceptible with the most powerful microscope. -- Simon Newcomb...

Motivation for Math

· 16 February 2006 | 303 words

Received this little story in an email. Being a math teacher in a Catholic high school, I naturally liked it. Little Zachary was doing very poorly in math. His parents had tried everything: tutors, mentors, flash cards, special learning centers....

Parking Lot Strategies

· 14 December 2005 | 201 words

Ahhh! The perennial question every holiday Christmas season--to "park and walk" or "cruise the lot" for the best parking space? Leave it to researchers to analyze the efficiency of these two strategies to find a parking space in terms of...

Pi on Turkey Day

· 24 November 2005 | 81 words

Having "pi" in the name of my weblog, it is only natural that I would have to try out this nifty little website called Am I in Pi?. You type in your birthday to see where it appears within the...

If Only I Knew…

· 14 December 2004 | 114 words

Imagine yourself in a high school honors algebra two class. The intellectual who's who of your grade is in this class. Imagine further, the teacher, who in an effort to help his students around one particularly tricky question, gives a...

What are the Odds?

· 15 May 2004 | 41 words

What is the probablity that everyone will have their eyes closed at the same time in a picture? :) This is my calculus class. We've been together for three years (through Honors Algebra 2, Math Analysis, and Calculus). I will miss...

There were these two nuns…

· 28 January 2004 | 338 words

There were these two nuns. One was known as Sister Mathematica and the other as Sister Logica. It was getting dark, and they were still far off from the convent. Sister Mathematica: Have you noticed that a man has been...

Math Teacher Arrested

· 23 May 2003 | 54 words

At Heathrow Airport today, an individual, later discovered to be a public school teacher, was arrested trying to board a flight while in possession of a compass, a protractor, and a graphing calculator. Authorities believe he is a member of...

A Sexy Math Typo

· 14 May 2003 | 28 words

Once on a trigonometry test, I accidently transposed the letters "c" and "x" in sec x (read as "secant x") as sex c. (And the spell checker missed it too!)...

Math, goats, and sex…

· 13 May 2003 | 46 words

Well, let's see. When I'm an old, decrepit man, sitting in my wheel chair in some nursing home and somebody mentions the name 'Bart', I will remember math, goats, and sex.

Sexy Integral

· 12 May 2003 | 12 words

Can you see the word "sex" in this integral?      ...

Calculus & Alcohol

· 2 May 2003 | 9 words

Calculus and alcohol--don't drink and derive. (old calculus joke)...

Happy Pi Day!

· 14 March 2003 | 16 words

Did you remember that today is 3/14, that is, the first three digits of π (3.141592654...)?...