Last summer I partnered with another educator from my school to craft a multisession mini course for Math for America. The course met over a three month period and focussed on teaching educators from the Metro New York area about the symmetries of a sphere using an ancient japanese art form called Temari. I used our organization’s shared digital message board called the small world network to post and share an overview of our course in the spring course catalog and invited 15-20 teachers to sign…
Did you know that the most appealing number to the eye is 1.618? This number is known as the Golden Ratio. In fact, our brains are seemingly hard-wired to prefer objects and images that use the Golden Ratio. The Golden Ratio is the limit of the ratios of successive terms of the Fibonacci sequence. The Fibonacci ratio is very close to the Golden ratio. The mathematical ideas the Fibonacci Sequence leads to, the Golden Ratio, and the Golden Spirals. As the number increases, the ratio becomes…
of all numbers: The dictionary meaning of prime is ‘Of first importance’ or ‘Of the best quality, excellent’ etc. What is so great about prime numbers? A number is said to be a prime if it is divisible only by 1 and itself. 5, for example, is a prime number because it is divisible only by 1 and 5. The number 4 can be divided by 1, 4 AND 2. So it is not a prime number. Numbers that are not primes are said to be composite numbers. The fundamental theorem of Arithmetic states that all numbers are…
Dunbar’s number. Dunbar’s number is, in fact, a series of numbers that represent the number of friends a typical person has that fit varying categories of familiarity and closeness. Maria Konnikova writes about Robin Dunbar’s research in her essay “The Limits of Friendship.” Robin Marantz Henig discusses the current plight of American millennials trying and failing to adjust to the world fast enough and become adults in “What is it About 20-Somethings?” Social media allows one to expand the…
Some ordered because they thought it would be fun to have their favorite numbers and letters on the number plates made specifically for them, when custom number plates were first introduced to the members of the general public. Of course, it is a fact that it's usually abundant and famous people with tailored plates hooked up on his or her high class cars. However, it soon turned out to become a very popular trend that not only famous individuals order custom plates from licensed plate makers.…
have to solve a problem to get the numbers out. The problem is 4(5+2x)-5=3(3x+7). First our mathematicians figured out 4 times 5 and 2x also 3 times 3x and 7 and reduced it to 20+8x-5=9x+21 then they subtracted 20-5 which reduced the problem to 8x+15=9x+21 then they subtracted 8x with 8x and 8x with 9x and written down its 15 =x+21 and then finally they -21 with 21 and 21 with 15 and got -6=x There is still no word on if the robbers are going to release the numbers but we will let you know as…
structures according to certain rules . Originally these elements would put be interpreted as numbers or quantities, so that the algebra somewhat originally was a generalization . The adjective " algebraic " usually denotes a relationship with algebra , such as in algebraic structure . For historical reasons, it may also indicate a relationship with the solutions of polynomial equations , algebraic numbers , algebraic extension or algebraic expression. It AGREES distinguishes between :…
I have found that number talks are really helpful for building number sense as well as assessing number sense. When I use number talks in my classroom it allowed me to easily see gaps in understanding with some of my students. Simply learning math facts through memorization is not very helpful. I can't count the number of times that I have memorized facts of some sort for a test and then promptly forgotten all of the facts after finishing the test. Our brain just doesn't work that way. If we…
that showed the number and an equal number of shapes (card 5 would have 5 stars). She gave each student 2 cards and asked them to either add or subtract the two numbers. She then would ask the students who had the most or the least. This was fun to watch because they would get so excited when they could come up with the answer and “won” the question. In the other group, she had rocks with numbers on them. Students would pick a rock. They would then have to tell what number they had. She…
Numbers are everywhere connected to everything we do. We use them to measure years, months, weeks, days, hours, and seconds. We count them in dollars and cents. We measure in feet, inches, meters and yards. The food we eat has a caloric number attached to it. We regard success and failure and distinguish ourselves according to the number of each. We age by ever mounting time. We calculate and distribute. We find comfort in the fact that 2 + 2 will always equal 4. Numbers have definite effect on…