Note: The Math for Love newsletter does not usually get posted on the blog. If you’d like to sign up, enter your name and email in the sidebar. Here are the announcements from our last one.

A Coin Problem

I’ve posted one of my favorite problems of all time as this week’s NYTimes Numberplay puzzle.

Consider this simple game: flip a fair coin twice. You win if you get two heads, and lose otherwise. It’s not hard to calculate that the chances of winning are 1/4.
Your challenge is to design a game, using only a fair coin, that you have a 1/3 chance of winning.

My relationship with this problem literally spanned years.
It manages to be simultaneously simple, devious, and deep.
Read more and join in on the discussion here.

Last Chance to Register for the Julia Robinson Festival

The Julia Robinson Math Festival is this Saturday, and we are filling up fast!
If you want your kids to be there, sign up now!

This is going to be our best festival yet. We’ve got the best activities ever, including a bunch of great new problems and activities, math/art projects, and games.

We’ll be capping off the event with a talk by Kathleen Tuite. Kathleen has been involved in some cutting-edge game design at the UW that encourages scientific discovery and collaborative problem-solving.

April-May Saturday Class
Registration is Open

Our theme this spring is geometry. We’ll explore the subject in some new and surprising ways, tackling a variety of compelling problems as we go. Potential topics include perimeter, area, maximal and minimal shapes, reflective geometry, fractals, and any other topics that I or the students want to study. In each class, we’ll explore the topic at a level appropriate to the age, tackling a variety of compelling problems along the way.

Classes run Saturdays, April 12 – May 24.

6th, 7th & 8th grade, 11:05 – 11:55
Sign up now!

Kindergarten & 1st grade, 12:05pm – 12:55pm
Sign up now!  Update: Full!

Email dan@mathforlove.com to join the waiting list or be contacted if we open a second section.

2nd & 3rd grade, 1:05pm – 1:55pm
Sign up now!

4th & 5th Grade, 2:05 – 2:55pm
Sign up now!

Math for Love Summer Classes

Save the date: June 23 – 27 we’ll be offering a week-long camp/math classes. Details are still forthcoming, but if you’re interested, email me and let me know how many kids you have who would like to participate, and how old then are/what grade they will be in next year.