Author: Geoff
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Pythagoras and the Pyrenees ; Performance Enhancing Math
This image and its ilk bothers me to no end. This is a profile of the 9th stage of the Tour de France*. (image adapted from letour.fr) So I had this simple little post in mind about the Tour de France and biking and elevation and distance and it would wrap up neatly into a…
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‘Groundhog Day:’ How long has Bill Murray been in Punxsutawney? (Part 2)
Our celebration of Groundhog Day and Groundhog Day continues with our second question about Phil and his time spent in Punsutawney. Artifact This scene from Groundhog Day. Guiding Questions How long has Bill Murray (“Phil”) been practicing throwing cards into a hat? Has Phil spent more time throwing cards into a hat than you’ve spent…
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‘Groundhog Day’ “I’m a god” scene solution
Here’s my attempt at a solution to the previous post on Groundhog Day. In order for Bill Murray (“Phil”) to convince Rita and allow for Rita’s peppering of questions, we have to assume that Phil knows everyone in the restaurant. It’s tough to get a beat on the number of people in the restaurant, but it’s a…
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‘Groundhog Day:’ How long has Bill Murray been in Punxsutawney? (Part 1)
Happy Groundhog Day everyone! Brief synopsis of Groundhog Day in case you didn’t know: Bill Murray is trapped in the same, repeating day in perpetuity. How long Murray has been trapped is a question that has plagued mankind since the early 1990’s. It’s never directly addressed in the movie, it’s just hinted that it’s a…
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Is there anything cooler than a math tattoo? (A: yes, pretty much everything)
As I mentioned last time, the Pythagorean Theorem is a difficult concept to have students discover intuitively. So we’re focusing on it specifically this week. If you have any activities or ideas, please let me know. Or tweet it to me. Here’s one sent in by Kevin. ======================================== A math nerd (Let’s say her name…
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The Problem With Pythagoras
And I’m not talking about the fact that he was a math cult leader. The Pythagorean Theorem is a tough one to teach in a “student-driven” or “discovery” fashion. It’s not very intuitive. It’s not like a high school student will be walking along one day, see a ladder propped up against a building and go,…
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Congressional seating for SOTU and Discrete Math
Remember when in elementary school when teachers would instruct you to sit “boy-girl-boy-girl?” Well, it appears as if the United States Congress needs to be reprimanded for their childish behavior and must sit “Democrat-Republican-Democrat-Republican.” You see, Colorado Senator Mark Udall made a proposal that during the 2011 State of the Union (SOTU) speech members of…
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How big is Mega Maid’s vacuum bag; “Spaceballs”
Artifact Scene from Mel Brooks’ classic, Spaceballs. Start off by simply showing it (or any combination of the split scenes) to your students (apologies if there are advertisements, you can skip them in like 5 seconds): Now, I’m not sure if you’d want to show the entire scene in a classroom setting, both because it’s rather…
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Please, make yourself at home
Welcome. This is a blog dedicated to math instruction and curricula. You always hear “Math is Everywhere!” from Math teachers and wall posters that came with their new set of precious textbooks, but often it’s more difficult to than you’d hope. And it’s even more difficult to get students thinking about Math outside of the Math…
emergent math 