Now here’s something I bet you didn’t know – where does the word ‘eleven’ come from?
Author: Dr Mike
Newsletter #38 : Math Architect Revisited
[This is a back-issue of this website’s newsletter]
At the start of the year, I put up a game called math architect. This is an online game, where players have to design an apartm,ent building with a given area, using only square rooms.
A Beautiful Fibonacci Movie
Here’s a beautiful movie I just found on Youtube. It shows how the Fibonacci sequence and the golden ratio are related to the shape of a nautilus shell, the middle of a sunflower, and the pattern on a dragonfly’s wings. I wish I had the technical skills to make movies like this!
Newsletter #37 : Worksheet Generators
[This is a back-issue of this website’s newsletter]
Last newsletter, I told you about an online worksheet generator. Using it, you can make as many worksheets as you like for testing multiplication and division by powers of ten. Since the last newsletter, I’ve improved this worksheet generator, and made another one for intervals of time. Both these generators now
- allow you to bookmark the questions and answers of your randomly generated worksheet, so you can come back to them later
- you can also give students the URL to the questions, but keep the answers URL secret. The answers URL is very hard to guess from the questions URL.
Who Is Better At Math?
About two months ago, I asked the question “Are Asians Better At Math?” The answer would appear to be yes (though some disagree). The book I was reading suggested that while young Asian students do perform better at math than students in Western schools (once you account for differences in socio-economic status and yada yada), the reasons were nothing whatsoever to do with ethnicity.
Newsletter #36 : Cryptarithms and Powers Of 10
[This is a back-issue of this website’s newsletter]
Let me talk about powers of ten first, then about cryptarithms.
My wife asked me to prepare some worksheets so my son could practice multiplying and dividing powers fo ten. I figured, why make just one or two worksheets when I can make a Worksheet Generator that can churn out as many problems as anyone could want? So I did, and put it online.
Continue reading Newsletter #36 : Cryptarithms and Powers Of 10
Orchard Puzzle
I recently received a tough puzzle as a gift from my brother. The name of the puzzle is “Orchard”, and so far, indeed, it seems quite tough! The first step in solving it is to solve this puzzle :
Creative Math Teaching
I just saw this excellent online presentation about creative ways to teach math – it explains (briefly) what’s wrong with the current “linear” method of teaching math, and gives some tips on how to improve matters – even within the current system.
Check it out below :
Three Sons, Eleven Horses
Here’s an old fraction puzzle. I have no idea who invented this, or whether it is decades or centuries old, but it’s always been a favorite conundrum of mine.
It starts with a man who wills his possessions to his three sons. The will specifies that the eldest son should get half his fortune, the second son a quarter, and the youngest son a sixth.
Pythagoras Jigsaw Puzzles
“Everyone” knows that 3×3 + 4×4 = 5×5. This little factoid, and other Pythagorean triplets, can be the basis of a nice set of puzzles. Here’s the first. If you draw a 5×5 square on graph paper, how can you cut it up (following the lines on the graph paper) so that the pieces can be rearranged to form a 3×3 square and a 4×4 square?
This is not so hard to do. Here’s one possible solution :