[This is a back-issue of one of this site’s newsletters]
In case you thought your school days were tough, give a thought to the troubles these students in China faced.
“….2,000 people had gathered, smashing cars and chanting: ‘We want fairness. There is no fairness if you do not let us cheat.’
According to the protesters, cheating is endemic in China, so being forced to sit the exams without help put their children at a disadvantage.
Teachers trapped in the school took to the internet to call for help. ‘We are trapped in the exam hall,’ wrote Kang Yanhong, one of the invigilators, on a Chinese messaging service. ‘Students are smashing things and trying to break in,’ she said….”
Anyway, it’s Monday morning! Here’s some happy maths to distract you – Soccer Ball Party Baskets! The traditional soccer ball pattern is the shape you get when you cut the corners off an icosahedron. Each of the 20 triangles becomes a hexagon, and each of the 12 corners becomes a pentagon. That’s 32 faces in all, which happens to be the number of teams that will compete in Brazil in 2014.
A quick puzzle – how many vertices on a soccer ball? How many edges? (An edge is the bounday between two faces, a vertex is the point where three faces meet.) I’ll give the answer next Monday!
By the way, if you love soccer (federation football), you can get more soccer party ideas here. If you prefer puzzles, I’ve written a short blurb here about one of my favorite math puzzles.
Finally…. animals! What’s this got to do with math? Actually, I’ve no idea, but this list of 15 monstrous critters – each the largest of its kind – is an educational read. Perfect for a Monday morning, wouldn’t you say?
Until next week,
Yours,
Michael Hartley