Gabriel’s Horn, which has infinite surface area and finite volume and is one of my favorite examples in calculus. Image: Public domain, by RokerHRO via Wikimedia Commons.
Textbooks are too expensive. The price is often “what the consumer will bear,” and the student is stuck bearing outrageous prices because the alternative i [...]
Posts tagged math education
You Get Calculus! And You Get Calculu...
Gabriel’s Horn, which has infinite surface area and finite volume and is one of my favorite examples in calculus. Image: Public domain, by RokerHRO via Wikimedia Commons.
Textbooks are too expensive. The price is often “what the consumer will bear,” and the student is stuck bearing outrageous prices because the alternative i [...]
Strumming the Lute of Pythagoras
Columbia College Chicago instructor Ann Hanson and two of her students generously shared artwork they made using the geometric figure the “Lute of Pythagoras.”
A drawing by Joseph Koch incorporates the Lute of Pythagoras into a portrait of Pythagoras himself. Image copyright Joseph Koch. Used with permission.
The ancient mathemati [...]
Binary Bonsai and Other Mathematical ...
A “binary bonsai” created using an algorithmic knitting process. Image copyright Madeleine Shepherd. Used with permission.
Many of us have seen Fibonacci numbers in sunflowers and hyperbolic curvature in kale leaves. Botanica Mathematica, “a textile taxonomy of mathematical plant forms,” takes mathematical-botanical correspondences like these [...]
Award-Winning Teachers Put Math on Ha...
A mathematical hat made by Patrick Honner’s students as part of an award-winning lesson plan. Image: Patrick Honner.
Many math teachers have a hands-on approach to their subject, but those hands aren’t usually covered in finger paint. Scott Goldthorp, however, sometimes teaches messy math classes. Goldthorp, a teacher at Rosa Internatio [...]
91 Is April Fooling You
7 × 13 pieces of beach glass found on the shore of Lake Michigan and arranged on my coffee table.
On April Fools’ Day, I wrote about 91, a non-prime that looks prime and has fooled me more than once.
You can generate your own fake primes, or Lamb pseudoprimes, by finding any two or more prime numbers other than 2, 3, 5, and 11 and multi [...]
Strength in Numbers: Mathematicians U...
A satellite view of Earth. Mathematicians across the globe are devoting 2013 to studying the mathematics behind a wide range of processes on our planet.Image: NOAA/NASA/GOES Project.
Over at Scientific American, I wrote about the Mathematics of Planet Earth 2013 initiative.
What do polar ice caps, guinea worm disease and wildfires have in com [...]
I’m Not Celebrating Pi Day This...
My non-celebration of Pi Day, a roundup of Pi Day blog posts from around the Internet.
Read the full post at Roots of Unity.
Interview on Math Tango
“Shecky Riemann” of Math Frolic and Math Tango asked me a few questions about my approach to writing about math.
“I try to see myself as an entertainer at least as much as an educator. For the most part, I want my pieces to make people happy. If they learn something as well, that’s a nice bonus.”
You can read the [...]
Consider the Octahedron
An octahedron for your consideration. Image: Mammaoca2008 (CC) via flickr
I wrote a review of Measurement by Paul Lockhart for the winter 2012-2013 issue of Columbia Magazine.
“Many popular books and articles aim to tie mathematics to everyday life: calculus is used to study income inequality, game theory explains international politics [...]
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