Investigator Patricia Jonas sent us this note: I was directed to a web site that says: “Imagine making maths fun using soap bubbles, balloons and a Maths Clown.” I do not want to imagine making maths fun using soap bubbles, balloons and a Maths Clown. I enjoy maths. But I find clowns disturbing. Very disturbing. […]
Tag: math
Let’s go, Camping! How Harold does his math.
Harold Camping calculates that the world will end on Friday, October 21, 2011. Mr. Camping and several like-minded persons shared the 2011 Ig Nobel Prize in mathematics, for teaching the world to be careful when making mathematical assumptions and calculations. How does Harold Camping do math? He shares his secrets in his mathematics text book: The Perfect […]
The penny determination algorithm
Dan Meyer writes, on his blog: Something I enjoy about computational thinking (the focus of my position with Google) is that it asks you to explicitly verbalize processes that may only exist in your intuition, processes that are too obvious for words. Case in point: which of these is a US penny? 100% of my […]
On and in crumpled paper
Crumpled paper fascinates physicists, most of whom nevertheless continue to throw away most of the paper they crumple. But some do pause to analyze what they’ve wrought. Wired reports about a recent case of this: “Crush a piece of typing paper into the size of a golf ball, and suddenly it becomes a very stiff […]